LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITEI) STATES OF AMERICA. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



H>an 

MEMOIR AND 


ittel iDngfelloto. 


by 


Rev. 


LETTERS. Edited 


Joseph May. 


With a Portrait. Crown 


Svo, 


gilt top, $1.50. 








ESSAYS AND 


SERMONS. Edited 


by 


Rev. 


Joseph May. 


With a Portrait. Crown 8vo, 


gilt top, $1.50. 








HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & 


CO. 




Boston and New York. 











:■■■:■ 







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■ffrrY^ ^yi^f^^^ 



SAMUEL LONGFELLOW 



ESSAYS AND SERMONS 

EDITED BY 

JOSEPH MAY 

MINISTER OF THE FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA 



One God, the Father of all ; who is above all, and through all, and in alP 





BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(E&e KtoermHe Press, Camfcrtoge 

1894 



%o s YssS^v 



Copyright, 1894, 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



2- W]lfU 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company. 



PREFACE 



The Essays here collected have all been pub- 
lished before. That on " The Unity and Univer- 
sality of the Religious Ideas " appeared in the 
volume entitled " Freedom and Fellowship in Re- 
ligion," issued in 1875 by the " Free Religious 
Association of America," with whose ready consent 
it is republished. 

The other three are all from that invaluable 
magazine of religion and intellectual freedom, in 
which Mr. Longfellow took great interest, " The 
Radical," edited for a number of years by Mr. Sid- 
ney H. Morse, who likewise gives the freest per- 
mission for reprinting these papers. 

Of the Sermons, about half have appeared before 
in print ; but it is felt that those who have known 
them will especially welcome them in this perma- 
nent form. 

Mr. Longfellow, indeed, left surprisingly few com- 
plete manuscripts of his discourses. He would 
seem to have destroyed very many. But it evi- 
dently became his habit, somewhat early in his 
professional life, to write out his sermons only par- 



IV PREFACE 

tially. To this cause is due an occasional abrupt- 
ness of style in some of the discourses here printed. 
Large portions of others which remain are only 
memoranda, often consisting of single words or 
phrases, by which he was guided in extemporaneous 
delivery. From the imperfect materials thus avail- 
able it would not have been possible largely to in- 
crease the present collection. 

J. M. 
Philadelphia, April 15, 1894. 



CONTENTS 



ESSAYS. 

PAGE 

Theism i 

The Unity and Universality of the Religious Ideas 31 

Natural and Spiritual • . . .74 

Some Radical Doctrines 87 

SERMONS. 

The Word Preached in 

A Spiritual and Working Church .... 129 

The Doctrine of the Spirit 146 

Parting Words 173 

Sermon at the Dedication of the Parker Memorial . 195 

Truth 221 

Obedience 234 

" We know in Part " 246 

Love to God 258 

The Limitations of Life 271 

The Surprises of Life 288 

Who is God ? 300 

What is Man? 312 

Prayer 325 

The Home 338 

Life, not Death 354 

Images of God 363 

" He giveth His Beloved in Sleep " 376 

Stayed on God 393 



ESSAYS 



ESSAYS 



THEISM 

I plead for our knowledge of God. There is a 
growing tendency in the scientific and philosophic 
world to set aside this name and thought. Dr. 
Buchner declares that " the more natural science 
advances in its research, the more it learns to recog- 
nize that nothing is created, and that nothing is 
destroyed, but that all rests in an eternal and self- 
sustaining circle, in which every commencement is 
an end." And Mr. Agassiz, whom Dr. Buchner has 
regarded as quite too much given to "preaching," 
says, " Until some limit to natural causes is found, 
there is no place in a scientific discussion, as such, 
for the consideration of the intervention of a Crea- 
tor." Mr. Huxley, though regarding materialism as 
a fatal plunge which " may paralyze the energies 
and destroy the beauty of a life," yet declares the 
immense convenience in physical studies of using 
the materialistic terminology, and proclaims the 
" gradual banishment from all regions of human 
thought of what we call spirit and spontaneity." 

In all this we need, perhaps, see no more than 
the desire to keep the fields of human thought free 
from embarrassing intermixture. There need be no 



2 THEISM 

conflict between natural science and theology, if it 
be recognized that they lie in different planes, and 
work with different instruments to different ends. 
And there will be no antagonism, if physical science 
does not claim to cover the whole ground and use 
the whole instrumentality of knowledge ; and if the- 
ology ceases to identify itself with certain obsolete 
traditions and false notions of God's relations to 
nature, and no longer insists upon limiting our natu- 
ral knowledge of divine things to evidences of God's 
being and character gathered from the outward 
world. 

Natural science lies in the plane of sensible phe- 
nomena, and uses for its instruments the senses and 
the understanding, — that "faculty judging accord- 
ing to sense," which perceives, explores, arranges, 
and generalizes the facts of the sensible world. In 
this plane, with these instruments, it cannot find 
God, simply because He i$ spiritually discerned. 
You cannot know the fragrance of a rose by your 
eyes. You cannot discover a star with an ear-trum- 
pet, nor find the beauty of a landscape with a sur- 
veyor's chain ; nor can you detect the loveliness of 
Mozart's melody, or the passionate mystery of Beet- 
hoven's harmonies, by chemical analysis. To each 
knowledge its own end and instruments. Each hu- 
man faculty is adequate and valid for its own objects. 

One would not give up his belief in the spiritual 
and wonderful beauty of Raphael's Sistine Madonna, 
though all the chemists and astronomers and physi- 
ologists in the world should say that they could see 
nothing but paint and canvas in it. And you need 
not abate in the least your belief in God, though in 



THEISM 3 

all Humboldt's volumes only twice do you find Him 
named. 

It does not follow, of course, that He is not be- 
lieved in because He is not named. 

Side by side with this tendency of science, we 
find certain systems of philosophy reaching similar 
results. The positivist philosophy finds in outward 
nature nothing but phenomena, their coexistences 
and successions ; no cause, no purpose, no law, no 
force even, only movement and invariable relations 
of sequence. Further, it finds in humanity nothing 
above humanity, or that looks beyond it. Its Su- 
preme Being is only the aggregate of the race. The- 
ology, to. it, is a superannuated notion. " The gods, 
and God, extinguished, humanity remains." An- 
other philosophy of which Mr. Herbert Spencer is 
the best known advocate, while declaring that we 
must believe God to be, denies to us any access to 
Him, any knowledge of what He is ; pronouncing 
it to be " alike our highest wisdom and our highest 
duty to regard that through which all things exist 
as the Unknowable." 

I speak for our knowledge of God ; for our ability, 
not only to know that He is, but in some true meas- 
ure to know what He is. Not by our senses, not by 
our understanding, do we know Him, for they are 
inadequate to find Him ; but by faculties as native, 
as trustworthy, and leading to results as certain. 

The senses and the understanding can, indeed, 
find in the sphere of outward nature only facts and 
their sequence. The idea of Cause is given by the 
mind alone. The ideas of Force, of Purpose, of 
Will, are given by the mind. So are the ideas 



4 THEISM 

of Unity, of the Absolute, the Eternal, the Infinite. 
All these ideas originate in the human soul ; they 
are not sensations, nor deductions of the under- 
standing, but intuitive suggestions of the spirit. 

Again : outward nature gives us the actual ; and 
the naturalist finds an immense and most interest- 
ing field of research in finding out what is, and just 
what is. To that lies his fidelity ; and to that all 
must be subjected. But the ideal, the haunting ideal 
of a better than is, of a Perfect, — whence is that ? 
From the mind itself: from that creative imagina- 
tion which is one of man's chief spiritual endow- 
ments, a native faculty of his soul. The artist's vis- 
ion and the poet's imagery, the inventor's dream 
and the reformer's plan, humanity's heaven, beyond 
earth or upon earth, — what are these all but the 
assertion of a necessity in man's nature, that will 
not let him rest in what is, or in its repetition ? 
What are they but strivings after, not what is, but 
what might be, and ought to be ? Yes, what is this 
mysterious sense of what we call beauty, the thrill 
and sweet delight of our recognition of something 
assuredly quite different from the sense's perception 
of forms and colors, or the understanding's explana- 
tion of material structure, — what is it but a spiritual 
perception, which we can only feel and name, but 
cannot explain ? 

Further yet : there is a grander thrill, a nobler 
joy, which kindles us in the contemplation of a deed 
of moral nobleness ; the glow with which we witness 
or read of moral heroism, of self-sacrifice to another's 
good, of martyrdom to truth, of devotion to duty. 
This moral sentiment, which confronts with its 



THEISM 5 

royal assertion of right all the allurements of pleas- 
ure and comfort and applause, all the calculations 
of prudence and all the plausibilities of policy, and 
embraces pain, solitude, struggle, and death, in the 
strength of its own supreme necessity and worth, — 
what is it but a primal element of the soul, utterly 
beyond the perception of the sense or the estimates 
of the practical understanding ? For is it not plain 
that any mere calculations of self-interest, however 
enlightened, or any forecasting of results of happi- 
ness to one's self or others, are still, in quality, an 
utterly different thing from the idea of right ? Self- 
interest we may waive, and happiness forego ; but 
this sense of sacred obligation, of the ought, which 
makes duty the sublime thing it is, we cannot set 
aside without the sense of violating a law higher 
than ourselves. 

Again : there is a very powerful sentiment in our 
nature, that of benevolence, unselfish love, — a very 
different thing from physical or passionate love. Its 
very essence is self-forgetfulness, disinterestedness. 
And, springing from no aim of self-gratification, it 
seeks as its end no mere gratification or indulgence 
of others, but their best good. As powerful an im- 
pulse as duty, and more genial and tender, it floods 
the world with good-will. The results we may see 
with our eyes and cakulate with our understanding ; 
but the love itself springs from no calculations ; it 
"passeth understanding" and is only spiritually 
discerned. 

Once more : there is an idea of holiness and sanc- 
tity which is different from all which I have named, 
though it may associate itself with them all. And 



6 THEISM 

attached to this is the sentiment of reverence, one 
of the noblest emotions of our nature, a humility 
that in itself exalts ; which whoso is wanting in 
wants one crowning grace of his manhood. 

Lastly : there is in us a sentiment of wonder and 
of awe, aroused by the sublime, by the mysterious 
and the inexplicable. 

These great ideas of cause and power ; of the 
Absolute, the Infinite, the Perfect ; these great sen- 
timents of love, right, beauty, sanctity, awe, — all 
belong to the spiritual nature of man ; and the 
capacity for them constitutes him a spiritual being. 
The characteristic of all of them is that they are 
primal, intuitive, spontaneous. They are not infer- 
ences, but perceptions. They cannot be analyzed ; 
for they are not results of any aggregation of details, 
but are primitive and simple. They do not come in 
at the end of any argument of the logical faculty. 
They are not deductions, but postulates. The truths 
they reveal are truths of the spiritual reason, not 
of the practical understanding. And they have 
this characteristic, that they are self-evident. By 
which I do not mean that every human being rec- 
ognizes them consciously ; but that, if they are seen 
at all, they are seen by their own light, are their own 
proof. They are native and original to the spiritual 
constitution of man, and under certain circumstances 
spring up involuntarily in his consciousness. 

These ideas all point to and culminate in the idea 
of God, the highest and sublimest idea of which hu- 
man reason is capable ; around which gather all 
these noblest sentiments I have named. This is an 
idea primitive and spontaneous in the human soul. 



THEISM 7 

The idea of God is the idea of a Unity behind 
and through all the diversities of phenomena ; of 
an Absolute, which is the substantial ground of all 
things changing ; of an Infinite, which is the source 
of all things finite ; of Essential Cause and Uni- 
versal Creative Force. It is the idea of absolute 
reason, of perfect wisdom, of absolute right, of per- 
fect justice, of absolute good, of perfect love, of the 
supreme beauty, of the supreme sanctity, the ineffa- 
ble mystery, of the highest object of reverence and 
awe, of love and trust. 

This idea of God is awakened in the human soul 
by whatever in the natural or the moral world moves 
us profoundly ; in its ruder and lower forms by what 
inspires terror, as the tempest and the earthquake ; l 
or by mere wonder, as in magic or so-called miracle ; 
in its purer forms by the vision of order, grandeur, 
beauty, truth, righteousness, holiness, love. 

But thus far I have only shown the existence of 
certain ideas in the human soul. How do we know 
that there is any Reality out of ourselves correspond- 
ing to these ideas ? 

I answer that we are so constituted that, when 
these ideas spring up in our mind, there springs up 
with them, necessarily, the sense of the reality of an 
object from which they originate and which they 

1 When Alexander Humboldt says, describing the terrific scene 
of the Caraccas earthquake, that the church bells began to toll, but 
it was no human hand, but the hand of God, that sounded them, the 
statement seems to me as unspiritual as it is unscientific. Better 
were the words of the young Goethe, after hearing a sermon upon the 
earthquake at Lisbon : " The preacher might have known that no- 
thing which could happen to a mortal body could harm an immortal 
soul." 



8 THEISM 

present. And we call these ideas intuitions, because 
there is involved in the experience of them this 
sense that they are perceptions of an object upon 
which they directly look. 

In other words, we know this objective reality of 
divine things through our instinctive faith in the 
trustworthiness of our faculties and their percep- 
tions. 

If we are deceived in this, then we have no means 
of knowing anything whatever ; since all that we 
know must be known through our faculties and 
through our confidence in the trustworthiness of 
those faculties. The scientist sets out with this pos- 
tulate, that his powers of observation and compari- 
son, his senses and his understanding, can be relied 
on. If they cannot, no knowledge of the outward 
world is possible. This faith is involved in all he 
does. And he takes it without proof, as a self-evi- 
dent certainty. 

Still further : the very existence of an outward 
world is known only by this faith. We think that 
we see and touch the outward world ; and I believe 
we do. But the metaphysician can easily show us 
that all we are really conscious of is certain impres- 
sions and sensations in ourselves. Nevertheless, we 
are so constituted that with those subjective sensa- 
tions there springs up, involuntarily and necessarily, 
the sense of a real objective world corresponding to 
them, and from which they proceed. 

And that is just what I said about our spiritual 
perceptions and a real spiritual object corresponding 
to them, and from which they proceed. 

There have been mystics, absorbed in the con- 



THEISM 9 

templation of spiritual things, who have denied any 
real existence of the outward world and called it an 
illusion. There have been men, absorbed in the 
contemplation of outward things, who have denied 
the existence of any spiritual world, and declared 
that God, soul, right, beauty, immortality, were but 
words for fancies and illusions. 

But all sound, practical men believe that they see 
and touch a veritably existing world of matter, and 
that the faculties by which they deal with it in the 
carrying on of their outward life are trustworthy. 1 
And all spiritually-minded men believe in the reality 
corresponding to the ideas of truth, right, and good ; 
to the idea of God as the ground of truth, right, and 
good ; because they instinctively trust in their spir- 
itual faculties. And in both cases experience justi- 
fies the trust. Not that in either we are infallible. 
Not but that our senses sometimes deceive us, and 
our practical judgments sometimes lead us wrong ; 
but on the whole, rightly used, they can be relied 
upon. Not but that our spiritual perceptions some- 
times lead us astray ; but on the whole, rightly used, 
they can be trusted to lead us aright. 

In other words, our native faculties are adequate 
to their purpose, and their perceptions are valid ; 

1 Professor Huxley says, indeed, " After all, what do we know of 
this terrible ' matter ' except as the name for the unknown, hypothet- 
ical cause of states of our own consciousness ? " A scientist may 
say this in his speculative moments. But how long will it be pos- 
sible for him to go on with his study of nature if he really believes 
that he is dealing, not with actual existences, but only with states of 
his consciousness ? He could not do it for a day, not for an hour. He 
must believe in the existence, out of his own mind, of the carbon, the 
atom, the fibre, the cell, the protoplasm. 



IO THEISM 

and the more completely adequate and valid in pro- 
portion as they are developed by healthy use in their 
appropriate direction. 

It is, then, in behalf of our spiritual nature and our 
spiritual faculties that I plead for our knowledge of 
God as real. Our spiritual reason testifies of Him ; 
our moral sense declares Him ; our sacred affections 
bear witness to Him. Imagination makes Him 
known in his beauty. Reverence bends before his 
majesty, his mystery, and his sanctity. Thus, with 
consenting voice, in the heavens of the soul do rea- 
son, conscience, and heart declare their knowledge 
of God. And if the human spirit images God from 
itself, it is because it is itself made in his image. 

So, I say, we know God. 

Not, of course, with the same kind of knowledge 
as that with which we know the material world, but 
with a knowledge as sure ; not with the same kind 
of certainty, but with a certainty as satisfying. I do 
not say that we comprehend Him, but that we truly 
apprehend him. We know Him "in part." But 
that part is the beginning of a continuous know- 
ledge of Him, advancing with our spiritual growth. 

Of course, if you insist, with a modern school in 
philosophy, upon confining the term " knowledge " 
to that which is obtained by the senses and the 
scientific understanding, then, indeed, God is not 
" knowable." And if that strict meaning be agreed 
upon, let its definition be kept in view, and we will 
seek another word. We will say that we apprehend 
God, perceive God, have access to Him ; that He is 
revealed to us by faith. But then we must under- 
stand that faith is a ground of certainty. Paul 



THEISM 1 1 

defines it as the evidence or assurance of things 
not seen. Goethe calls it the " immediateness of 
divine feeling." 1 It is an assurance on sufficient, 
but interior, grounds. 

But I see no reason why we should not, at least 
until these definitions be settled, use the word 
" knowledge " in its ordinary sense of rational appre- 
hension, and say we know God ; only remembering 
how it is that we know Him ; by what high faculty 
of the soul. 

But not only do we know God in the sense of 
knowing that He is. 

If that were all that were possible for us, I sup- 
pose we should be thankful for that. If our belief 
that we know more be but a delusion, we must be 
willing to let it go, though half our life seem to go 
with it. For it must always, in the end, be best 
for us to know and accept the truth about anything. 
And we must thank the hand that tears even a 
cherished error from our mind. No error can be 
good for us when we are able to know the truth for 

1 This is the passage : " Strictly considered, I can know nothing of 
God but what the very limited horizon of sensible perceptions on this 
planet affords ground for, and that, on all points, is little enough. 
Hereby, however, it is by no means asserted that by this limitation of 
our observations on outward nature limits are likewise set to our faith. 
On the contrary, the case may easily be that, by the immediateness 
of divine feeling in us, knowledge must necessarily appear but a 
patchwork. There are primary phenomena," he adds, " which in their 
divine simplicity we ought not to distrust or disparage by useless 
inquiries, but leave to reason and to faith. Let us endeavor to press 
forward courageously from both sides. Where knowledge falls short 
or appears inadequate, we must not contest with faith its rights. As 
soon as we set out from the principle that knowledge and faith are 
not given to destroy each other, but to supply each other's deficiencies, 
we shall come nearer to an accurate and ri^ht estimate." 



12 THEISM 

which it stands, or in the way of which it stands. 
We can always bear the truth. 

But I am persuaded that it is no delusion when 
we have believed that we knew God, not only to be, 
but to be infinitely wise, good, loving, just, beau- 
tiful ; to be the very essence of wisdom, goodness, 
love, justice, beauty. I am persuaded that it is not 
a delusion when we have felt, in our moments of 
goodness, love, justice, and spiritual beauty, that we 
were very near to Him and He to us, even that He 
was dwelling in us. Witness the glo'w that flows 
like warm life-blood about our heart when we hear 
but the reminiscence of such experiences. Witness 
the chill and the desolation and sense of loss with 
which we hear ourselves denied that access to Him. 
Witness that inextinguishable longing of the human 
soul to know God, and feel Him not afar off, testi- 
fied to in the whole long history of mediators, inter- 
cessors, revealers, which human need has constructed 
to bridge the chasm and bind itself to God, when its 
creeds have taught Him to be remote, inaccessible, 
or alienated. Only so can the heart be satisfied. If 
God be hidden from us, a Christ is made his mani- 
festation. If He be inexorable, a loving Jesus, or 
tenderer Mary Mother, is made to fill his place. If 
He be inaccessible to our prayer, the intercession 
of saints is sought. If we have no native faculty 
of knowing Him or his will, a book revelation is 
proclaimed. If He be hopelessly far away, hosts of 
disembodied spirits will men seek, to learn their 
duty and find the spiritual guidance they need be- 
yond themselves. 

History tells us that the periods of unbelief in God 



THEISM 13 

have been precisely those most infested by supersti- 
tions and prodigies and incantations. When the 
true God is taken away, men cling to anything that 
may connect them with the spiritual world. The 
spiritual nature, defrauded of its right, seizes the 
nearest counterfeit. Nor can even the companion- 
ship of the wise and good of earth satisfy that secret 
aspiration which yearns beyond the earth. And, 
sufficient as the soul is to itself, it yet cannot live 
alone. 

But here some one may say to me, — and I will 
here meet the objection, — almost all Christians will 
tell us that they feel the very same chill and sense 
of loss and desolation of which we speak when we 
take away from them the " Christ " on whom they 
lean. Of his nearness they feel the same need and 
the same persuasion that we feel in regard to God ; 
he is their only reliance, and the sweetness of his 
presence is their strength and their consolation and 
their peace ; through him alone they have hope of 
forgiveness, access to heaven, and assurance of im- 
mortality. Yet we pronounce their faith an error 
and a delusion. Why is not the witness of their 
hearts to Christ as trustworthy as the witness of 
ours to God ? If they are mistaken, why may not 
we be ? 

I answer that certainly I claim no infallibility, and 
that any positiveness of statement on my part is only 
the expression of sincere conviction of what I hold 
true. But I am confident that no error has kept any 
strong or lasting hold upon human minds unless it 
represented a truth higher than itself. It has been 
that truth, so dimly seen as to be erroneously ex- 



14 THEISM 

pressed, to which the heart has given its allegiance ; 
and that truth, being higher, larger, contains all that 
was good in the error, and more. What a devotee 
of Christ, of Mary, has prayed to, has clung to, was 
a spiritual power and love higher than, yet akin to, 
himself ; that is, God. And when I bid him give 
up the idol (eidolon, image) Christ, it is that he 
may find the true, invisible God whom Christ has 
imaged to him ; that he may find Him, not through 
his representative manifestation, but in himself. It 
is He that has been hearing his prayers ; why not 
address them to Him ? It is He that has answered 
them ; why not hear his voice ? Has he, from child- 
hood on, been saying daily his prayer, "Our Father 
who art in heaven, " and never believed that the 
Father could receive it ? Every time, he ended it 
with no mention of intercessor through whom it was 
offered, or master as whose disciple he proffered it, 
and has he never believed that it could so reach 
Him? He may have fondly thought that he could 
"see more of heaven reflected in the eye of Jesus" 
than he could find elsewhere. But let him look up, 
and lo ! in his own eye the whole blue heaven is 
mirrored, and he sees face to face. He has clung to 
the hand of Jesus ; if I unclasp it, it is that he may 
touch the Father's hand, and, folded in his embrace, 
and looking into his face, know at last in whom he 
has trusted. For it was He that was with him, and 
with whom he talked, though he knew Him not. 
He was never inaccessible to him, never unwilling or 
unable to hear him, forgive him, 1 redeem him. 

1 By forgiveness we are to understand, not removal of penalty, 
but healing and restoration, and assurance that penalty is redemptive. 



THEISM 1 5 

Quite otherwise is it when one would take from 
me as a delusion my faith that I can know God, and 
in some true sense and measure know what He is 
and find Him near to me. There is no higher truth 
for which I can exchange that faith, and of which 
it was the imperfect and erroneous expression. To 
give me humanity is to give me less. To give me 
myself, and my ideal as the image of my own possi- 
bilities, is to give me a lower, not a higher. If it be 
true, indeed, I will accept it and bear it as best I 
may, as I can bear all losses. But if it be not true — 
I thank God for the assurance I have that it is not ; 
that, when my heart yearns upward for a divine love, 
and an assurance meets it of an answering love, it 
is really embosomed in an unspeakable divine ten- 
derness ; that this loving-kindness and tender mercy 
of our God is not left merely to be sought for and 
inferred from the multitude of outward blessings, 
and the manifold sources of happiness afforded in 
surroundings of our life ; but is experienced, as we 
experience the highest human love, not through 
what it does for us, but in its own living presence. 
Not the proofs of love, but the love itself, is it that 
my heart feels in answer to its uplifted longing; 
and with all its unspeakable comfort, cheer and 
strength and sweetness and peace. 

And when, in some hour of doubtful or difficult 
duty, my moral sense, my conscience, has sought to 
know the right, or to be nerved to faithfulness to the 
right, and, looking beyond itself to Him, the Infinite 
Justice and Perfect Righteousness, has found itself 
illumined and invigorated, helped to see clearly and 
to be true, come what might, I do not believe that it 
was a delusion. 



1 6 THEISM 

And when the mind, searching after truth, baffled 
and struggling, but pursuing, like one making his 
way through forest and thicket towards the light of 
mountain-summits beyond, has found itself suddenly 
freed into the light of a great truth seen to be an 
everlasting law, and thanks God in its joy for the 
revelation, it has not been mocked in the thought. 
Light was waiting us as we sought the light, and it 
was from beyond ourselves that it came. In such 
moments we always feel that the truth which is free- 
ing and exalting us is not anything of our own crea- 
tion or possession. Our reason has communicated 
with the depths of the Universal Reason, has looked 
upon the Eternal Truth, and has received his inspi- 
ration and revelation. 

And when, in presence of nature's majestic beauty 
or gentler loveliness, the imagination is kindled into 
awe or stilled into peace, and we feel a sense of an 
invisible and supernal beauty, a spirit in nature, 
which makes the scene so sublime, so fair, — 

" The light that never was on sea or land, 
The inspiration and the poet's dream," — 

it is not idly that the name of God springs to our lips 
or our thought, — the name and the thought of Him 
" who out of his own beauty maketh all things fair." 
But this is not only our individual experience, 
which might be an idiosyncrasy, which, if it were 
peculiar to ourselves, we might suspect to be unreal. 
Those to whom we speak of it say, So I have felt, 
so I have thought. Multitudes upon multitudes of 
witnesses, from far-off times and distant regions, add 
their testimony. It is wellnigh universal. Saint and 



THEISM 1 7 

reformer and prophet and philosopher and martyr 
and poet and artist, and men of genius in all times, 
have declared that a power beyond themselves moved 
them, and spoke or worked through them. And 
humbler men, in quiet, homely ways, have testified 
to the visits of the Spirit in their heart. 

And, in all times, men who have not claimed this 
as their own experience or deemed it possible for 
themselves, have yet believed it true that others, as 
prophets, were inspired of God. 

It is conceivable that all this belief, all this assur- 
ance, springing up in the minds of men of such dif- 
ferent race and culture, in so remote and separated 
times, can be without foundation ? No doubt men 
have often made mistakes about their own and others' 
inspiration ; but all of this cannot be a mistake, all 
a delusion. There was some ground for their errors. 
For, as I cannot believe that, if there were no God, — 
whatever mistaken notions men may have had about 
Him, — men could by any possibility have almost 
universally conceived of Him, so if He were not 
accessible to man, and if man were not accessible 
to Him, I do not see that the idea of his presence, 
communion, inspiration, indwelling, could ever have 
sprung up in so many minds, or in any mind. I ad- 
mit the abundant false notions about God, and about 
his relations to us, in past ages and in our own, in 
heathendom and in Christendom, — gross and crude 
and wicked and foolish conceptions. But I summon 
even these to witness on my side ; to testify to the 
reality of the ground-idea of God and his communion 
with us ; that ground-idea and central truth which 
they so poorly expressed, but which, with all their 



1 8 THEISM 

grossness or folly, they could not extinguish, and 
without which they could not have existed. 

If we call this contact with God inspiration, and 
its results revelation, it has been customary to regard 
it as confined to a few persons especially selected 
by the divine volition as the channel of illumination 
and communication, and supernaturally (that is, 
miraculously and not under any constant law of the 
spirit) endowed or possessed. The speech, or re- 
ported speech, of these men is counted the speech 
or word of God. As such, it is declared to be infal- 
lible, or virtually so ; the divine rule of faith and 
practice ; not to be questioned, not to be judged ; 
authoritative, without appeal. If any man will know 
the truth or the will of God, there it is recorded ; 
let him read and obey. 

The objections to this theory are obvious from 
any spiritual point of view. The Theist declares 
inspiration and revelation to be the action of a con- 
stant force, under a constant law; that is, under 
fixed conditions (as all forces must be in an orderly 
or God-governed universe). The difference between 
the spiritual mind and the external mind is one of 
kind. But the difference between a prophet and 
any spiritually-minded man is only one of degree, 
depending entirely upon the degree in which the 
conditions have been fulfilled. For the germs of 
spiritual-mindedness are in every human soul, how- 
ever undeveloped, else no inspired teacher could 
convey a spiritual truth to it. Try to convey what 
sight is to a blind man, and you will see that this is 
true. The responses which reason, heart, or con- 
science make to the prophet's word are but the 



THEISM 19 

springing to life of the inborn germ. They are the 
opening of an eye whose nerve is made for sight. 
How native to us always seems a new truth ! There 
is no need to call the extraordinary gift superhuman 
or miraculous. There is no more familiar fact in 
the world than this of extraordinary men, — men of 
genius we call them ; men so happily constituted, 
and so faithful to their gift, that their faculties play 
with unobstructed freedom in some special direc- 
tion, so that in poetry or science or art they tran- 
scend their age. You cannot compute the time and 
culture that would be needed to bring the average 
mind or average imagination up to them, even to the 
full comprehension and enjoyment of them. Yet 
we do not think there is anything superhuman or 
miraculous about them. They have only in supreme 
degree qualities which all men have in lower degree, 
at least in possibility. Is there any reason why it 
should be otherwise in the sphere of religion ? Spir- 
itual superiority, spiritual supremacy even, if that 
could be established, — do these any more implicate 
a superhuman and a miraculous ? In view of this, 
nothing, it seems to me, can be more futile and ir- 
relevant than the question so often triumphantly 
asked, If Jesus was but a man, how is it that none 
equal to him has since appeared ? 

But, in truth, I hesitate to speak of him ; be- 
cause I wish to say only the exact truth. And what 
means have we of knowing the exact truth about 
him ? What can we know of him except that he 
must have been a man, and that he was the centre 
of a vast religious movement which envelops us ; a 
movement, however, which by no means originated 



20 THEISM 

with him, and which came to include in its complex 
progress many powerful influences beside his. I 
do not now insist upon the uncertainties which 
modern criticism has thrown about the authorship 
and contents of the Gospels. I do not dwell upon 
the elements of myth, Messianic conception, and 
doctrinal tendency, which have been shown to be 
contained in them. I speak only of what is admitted 
by all. We have not a single written word of his. 
Nay, we have but three or four words that profess 
to be reported as he spoke them. 1 What we have 
are confessedly fragmentary reports of his words 
written down from memory and tradition many 
years after the events, and in a language different 
from that in which he spoke. Even the original 
reports we have not ; only later copies of them, 
differing among themselves. Finally, the immense 
majority of Christians have access only to a transla- 
tion of these copies. So that we stand at three or 
four removes from those words of Jesus which are 
declared to be the supremely authoritative words of 
life. Is it strange that a Theist should hesitate in 
according them such authority as his words, seeing 
no ground whatever for believing that they have 
been miraculously preserved from the natural effects 
of this multiplied tradition ? Is it strange that he 
should think it easier to know what is true than 
whether Jesus really said it ; to know what is right 
than whether Jesus did it ; and should accord to any 

1 Such, for instance as " talitha cumi," in the account of the rais- 
ing of the daughter of Jairus; where, by the way, though he is rep- 
resented as saying distinctly, " She is not dead," yet the whole 
Christian church asserts that she was dead and was miraculously 
brought back to life. 



THEISM 2 1 

words attributed to Jesus only the value which his 
own mind, heart, conscience can find in them ? 
And this in no spirit of rejection, still less of defi- 
ance, but simply in fidelity to the truth ? Is it 
strange, in short, that when he is bidden to come to 
Jesus he should answer, Jesus is no longer here ; I 
could only go to some imagination of him — to his 
portrait, as Francis Newman says ? But God is 
here. To Him will I go. He has the word of life 
for me. And that word abideth forever. Then, for 
the time-honored and time-worn watchword, " Christ 
and him crucified," I would substitute, God, and 
Him infinitely near. 

" For he is not far from any one of us," said Paul. 
" God dwelleth in us," wrote the Augustan poet, 
Manilius, and the Christian John. " Not even our 
own thoughts are so nigh," said the German mystic, 
Tauler. " Nearer to our souls than our bodies are," 
wrote William Law. 

When we remember that He is spirit and that we 
are spirits, we comprehend how that can be. By our 
spiritual nature we have access to Him, and He to 
us. That is the mediator and revealer, the God-in- 
man ; for in the highest action of our spirits we can- 
not distinguish between the human and the divine. 
In those exalted and mysterious moments, we and 
our Father are one, as the mingling waters when the 
ocean floods the river with its rising tide. 

There are two ways by which this access of our 
souls to God and this responsive inflowing are ac- 
complished, of which I shall briefly speak. 

The first is prayer. 

It may or may not be spoken in words. The 



22 THEISM 

prayers spoken in words are, we all know how often, 
an offense to the spiritual sense, such utterance of 
hardened formulas, of petrified phrases, such mum- 
mies of piety, dead so long ago. So irrational, so 
impious, save for some good intention, we wonder 
that God can have patience with them and does not 
cry out from the skies, " Be still ; and know that I 
am God." But I do not think that He hears them. 
Those rattling words cannot pierce to the realm of 
spirit where He is. But, again, a spoken prayer, 
our own or another's, may be such an outgoing of 
the spirit that it shall quicken the slumbering heart 
and lift up the fainting thought, and wing our affec- 
tions into the heaven behind the veil. The essence 
of prayer is aspiration, the yearning and seeking and 
desire of the soul. Then it matters not what words 
are uttered — all words of prayer are symbols ; they 
are forms of feeling, not of criticism ; not the mathe- 
matician's exactness, but the poet's freedom, belongs 
to them. And the highest result and reward of the 
conscious prayer is the unconscious, the perpetual 
frame of trust and reverent humility before God, 
which is the prayer without ceasing. We err if we 
think prayer to be alone or chiefly petition, the ask- 
ing for this and that. It is the cry of the spirit for 
help in time of need ; but chiefly it is the heart set- 
tling itself to rest in the divine sympathy. It is the 
conscience bathing itself in the divine righteous- 
ness. It is the will nerving itself by contact with 
the divine energy. It is meditation and contempla- 
tion and communion. It is the spontaneous out- 
burst of joy. It is said of Theists that they do not 
pray. Very likely they do not " make " so many 



THEISM 23 

prayers. One of their number, I think, expressed 
her regret that it was so ; and a Liberal Christian 
added the comment, " Ah, if theism would but pray, 
and so become a religion ! " But the orthodox Chris- 
tian makes the same charge against the liberal, 
pointing to infrequent family prayers, prayer-meet- 
ings, and the like. Yet the orthodox Protestant need 
not boast ; the Roman Catholic prays more times 
than he ; has his church open every hour of every 
day for the devout ; prays to the Virgin and a multi- 
tude of saints, as well as to God and Christ. Do 
you remember what Luther's wife, Catharine, said, 
" How is it, Martin, that when we were Catholics 
we prayed so often, and now so seldom ? " 

Let us remember that many prayers may not be 
mucJi prayer. There is a measure of quality as well 
as quantity. Surely there can be nothing in the 
faith in God, and Him infinitely near, that can hin- 
der prayer in the spiritual sense. But the Theist's 
prayers must be different from another's. He will 
not ask God to give him the things he should get 
for himself, nor to do for him what he ought to do 
for himself, or to do for the world what it is men's 
work to do for it. But he may ask for help to see 
his duty and do it faithfully to himself and others ; 
and the calm thought of the serenity of Infinite 
Wisdom, and the breadth and depth of Infinite Love, 
and the steadfastness of the Infinite Will to good 
may clear his mind to see, and quicken his heart to 
feel, and his will to do. And, for answer to prayer, 
this powerful influence of having touched the In- 
finite will satisfy him. He will not expect God to 
occupy himself in an individual and special manner 



24 THEISM 

with him. The individuality and the specialty are 
on the human side. When I go out under the open 
sky in one of these clear, radiant days, and breathe 
in the invigorating air, I do not wish that the air 
should be seeking me. It is searching me through 
and through. I joy in the sunshine, but I do not 
wish it to be selecting me to direct its warmth upon. 
Enough that I bathe in the light, the air, the warmth, 
and am filled by them as they are bountifully spread 
for me as for all. So it is with the truth, the love, 
the strength, the peace of God. They are for me 
because they are for all. 

I do not think that God gives us things in answer 
to our prayer. To true prayer He gives somewhat 
of himself, which enables us to get the things, or to 
do without them. 

If we are inspired by God when we seek Him, 
it is that we inspire Him, — breathe Him into our 
spirits. Few men, the physiologist will tell us, 
breathe full breaths of the vital air. How few souls 
breathe full breaths of the Divine Spirit ! 

The second access to God is through obedience, 
— the doing his will. Of this, too, I might say that 
it is rather his access to us. And I must say, in 
brief, that whenever we are putting forth our wills 
in the direction of his will, — that is, in doing right 
and doing good, — then his will with its divine energy 
reinforces ours and acts through us. It does so, 
whether we are conscious of it or not ; just as surely 
as, if you direct your telescopic tube in the line of a 
star's light, that light penetrates it ; just as surely 
as, if you suspend a piece of iron in the line of the 
magnetic currents, it becomes a magnet ; just as 



THEISM 25 

surely as, if you build a wall upright, the force of 
gravity holds it firm. And remember that God's 
will is not a single volition or series of volitions, 
but a constant force, a perpetual, unbroken energy 
of good, everywhere pressing for entrance through 
human wills to sustain, redeem, and perfect the cre- 
ation. 

There is a notion which was prevalent among 
mystics in former ages, and has been revived in a 
certain shape in our own time ; I mean the notion 
that inspiration is best obtained through passivity of 
our own minds and wills. Not into the vacated mind 
and heart does God come, or any high spirit ; but 
into the active mind and heart. Even our medita- 
tion must be a contemplation, not an idle reverie. 
Not the crucifixion of our will does He ask, as 
devotees have taught, but the active consecration of 
our will. God must need a strong will to work his 
purposes, not a broken one. It must be a will, in- 
deed, turned away from all self-indulgence and every 
form of self-seeking. But when, endeavoring to do 
God's will, we are most self -forgetfully absorbed in 
that work, and most filled with Him, then we are 
most ourselves ; our obedience is our perfect free- 
dom. Tennyson has well expressed it in the familiar 
lines : — 

" Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine." 

For to man as a spiritual being is given the privi- 
lege of conscious voluntary obedience to the divine 
law, found to be also the law of his own being. This 
privilege he owes to the freedom of a will separate 
from God, though not separated from Him ; a free- 



26 THEISM 

dom of whose reality we are conscious, while we are 
equally conscious of its limitations. 

The materialistic Pantheist may lose God in na- 
ture ; the mystical Pantheist may lose man and na- 
ture in God ; the Theist finds God in man and in 
nature, and beyond them. 

For when a man has thus found God in himself, — 
in his own spirit and through his own spirit, and in 
true and holy men, — he may go out into nature, 
and he will find it full of his presence, his power ; 
though he would never find that presence in outward 
nature till it had first been found in human nature. 
He will find God not superintending the world from 
afar, but moving it from within, close to every atom, 
in all forces, which will be seen to be but forms of 
the one universal cosmic force, which He is. The 
majestic, all-encompassing, all -penetrating sweep of 
that force is his creative will in nature ; his will, 
not, as I said, a series of separate volitions, but an 
immanent energy. Its tides flood every cranny of 
the universe. God is in the sky and the sea ; in the 
constellations and the grain of sand. He is in the 
sunshine and the tempest ; in the blossoming clover 
and the falling rain. Wherever his power is, He is. 
Wherever is beauty, He is. Wherever is life, He is. 
Wherever is beneficence, He is. What is hard and 
maleficent in nature is only so much as is not yet 
completely created and filled with his purpose of 
love. 

But it is only as cosmic force, of life, order, unity, 
and beauty, that we find God revealed in the 
outward world. In the soul of man, alone, He is 
revealed in his grander moral aspects. There alone 



THEISM 27 

He is revealed as person. For there He is revealed 
as thought and purpose, as love and righteousness ; 
and these are qualities of person and not of thing. 
So, though conceiving of God as the infinite, all-per- 
vading spirit in the world of matter and of mind, we 
still say He, not It. 

Of the presence of God as providence in human 
affairs, I have left myself little space to speak. The 
Theist finds this presence in continuous order, and 
not in interrupting miracle ; in perfect law, not in 
supplementing interference. This providence is, to 
him, not special intervention, nor yet mere general 
superintendence, but perpetual and universal saving 
presence. He discovers a law of progress and evolu- 
tion leading on toward perfection for the individual 
and the race. All human freedom, though real 
within its limits, is held within the control of this 
supreme will of good. We may not be able, in 
human events, to distinguish between God's will and 
the sum or resultant of human wills. But we know 
that the human wills that have aimed at justice and 
good have been workers for God. In the late strug- 
gles of our country's new birth, we have been led to 
see most impressively a will of justice above human 
wills, which yet acted through them ; the working of 
divine forces which included the human. In these 
years of intense experience how many souls have 
met God face to face, and known Him, as never 
before, in the inspirations of duty and in the revela- 
tions of self-sacrifice for ideas ! I see that a move- 
ment is making among some well-meaning but nar- 
row-minded persons to get inserted into the national 
constitution a formal recognition of God. But, in 



28 THEISM 

the amendments which insert justice into that con- 
stitution, God is put into it far more truly than if 
his name alone were blazoned on its every page. 

Thus I have tried to speak of our knowledge of 
God. That knowledge, I have tried to show, is not 
a perception of the senses, but a vision of the soul ; 
not a deduction of the understanding, but a convic- 
tion of the reason. Not the astronomer or the phy- 
siologist speaks with authority here, but the saint. 
We gladly accept every illustration of the divine 
methods which physical science offers ; but the 
primal proof of divine being is within. We will- 
ingly modify our modes of speaking about God, and 
his ways in nature, in conformity with every new 
discovery of fact or law ; but we do not yield to 
physical science what that science never gave — 
the central idea of God. And the philosophy which 
does not accept the experience of the saintly soul, 
the intuitions of piety, and the inner facts of the re- 
ligious sentiment, does not cover the whole ground. 
It may prevail for a while, and do a good work in 
disabusing men's minds of superstitions ; but it will 
not keep a lasting place. 

On a theme so high, all words must be little more 
than suggestions. Not analysis, but living experi- 
ence, is the key. Enough if I have touched some 
spring in our common spiritual experience which 
may have opened to any, more clearly, the grounds 
of faith in that truth of truths without which life, 
though full of good, would yet be shorn of its finest 
glory, — the illumination of the divine presence. 

Enveloped in that presence, we move ; quickened 
by that, we live ; invigorated by that, we work ; em- 



THEISM 29 

bosomed in that, we rest. " Ourselves from God we 
cannot free " — always so near to us that we are 
never lonely or unprotected ; never so close to us 
that we are stifled or hindered. As the light, the 
air, the electric forces, press closely round our 
bodies, and enter in to mingle with them, yet with 
no sense to us of constraint, but only of invigoration 
and freedom ; so God, the Spirit, closely enfolds 
and stirs within our soul, life of our life, spirit of our 
spirit, life and spirit of the universe. 

For as the light and air and electric forces, though 
enfolding and dwelling in us, come from far above 
us, and reach far beyond us ; so, He, the Infinite 
Spirit, while encompassing us, and dwelling in us, 
yet far transcends us. No human soul, if it lives, is 
altogether without Him ; no human soul is large 
enough to contain or fully express Him, for all are 
contained in Him. 

Have you sought after God, searching for Him 
through the vastness of visible space, or amid the 
perplexities of human existence, or by the analysis 
of the understanding, and has your mind come back 
baffled and disheartened ? Lo, in the snowflake or 
the spring flower at your feet He awaited you ; in 
every law of nature you were trusting Him ; in 
every noblest thought of your mind, in every sacred 
feeling of your heart, in every high ideal of your im- 
agination, in every pure enthusiasm for beauty and 
for goodness, in every sacrifice of visible to invisible, 
of outward comfort to inward principle ; in every 
simple doing of duty, in every familiar act and ser- 
vice of unselfish love, He was revealing himself. 
Not only in the twilight musing, but in the plain 



30 THEISM 

daylight of daily work faithfully performed, He has 
been with you. In every victory of good over evil, 
you have met Him. In every just and holy man or 
woman who has touched your life to higher issues, 
you have seen Him. You have talked with Him in 
the way, and broken bread with Him at the table. 
Your words may fail, when you would speak of 
Him ; but your soul cannot fail to acknowledge 
Him. 

March, 1872. From The Radical. 



THE UNITY AND UNIVERSALITY OF 
THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

The old definition of Catholic truth was, " Quod 
semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus," — what has 
been believed in at all times, in all places, and by all 
men. 

It would be easy to catalogue the diversities of 
the religious conceptions, the moral practices of dif- 
ferent times, places, nations, and to emphasize the 
contradictions, until it might seem, as some indeed 
believe, that there is no truth attainable by man, — 
nothing but notions and opinions, fancies, errors, 
and superstitions, perpetually changing, and alike 
futile ; till it might seem, as many believe, that no- 
thing but a miraculous intervention from heaven 
could at last reveal the truth and the way, and bring 
any order out of this chaos. I do not believe either 
of these conclusions. And it is my undertaking, in 
this paper, to show a unity and universality of truth 
existing in spite of all these diversities and under 
them all ; to show the element of truth existing 
beneath all errors and superstitions. I take the 
errors and superstitions, not to refute, but to bear 
testimony to, the reality of the truth they have so 
poorly, yet so really, represented. These are the 
witnesses. Superstition declares an impulse in man 
to religion. Idolatry establishes the inborn im- 
pulse to worship. Polytheism reveals the native in- 



32 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

stinct in man to conceive of mysterious power above 
man and nature. Necromancy involves a belief in 
immortality. These are the rude beginnings, the im- 
perfect, sometimes monstrous growths. But where 
there was all this smoke, there must have been some 
fire ; where there was all this manifestation, there 
was something seeking expression. That something 
was Religion ; man's native sense of somewhat within 
him and beyond him other than the visible ; the 
sense of the unseen and infinite and perfect haunt- 
ing him, now in rude and incoherent dreams, now 
in clearer vision ; but from which he could not free 
himself. He tried to name it, and he stammered. 
He tried to reach it, and he stumbled. But still 
it stirred within him, and would not let him alone. 
Still it shone before him, and beckoned him on. 
That, in spite of all unintelligible and absurd be- 
liefs, in spite of all burdensome and monstrous and 
cruel practices, in spite of all tyrannies of priestcraft 
and church authority, nearly all nations of men have 
remained religious, is to me a most striking proof 
of the reality and indestructibility of the religious 
element in man's nature. 

We must keep in mind the distinction between 
essence and form, between a ground-idea and the 
outward conception in which it shapes itself. The 
conception varies as the idea works itself out in 
greater or less clearness and force. 

The diversities, however great, need not disturb 
our faith in unities of idea. But the diversities have 
been much exaggerated. The unity is found again 
and again, not merely in the underlying idea, but in 
the very expression of the truth. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 33 

The great religious ideas are these : God, Duty, 
Benevolence, Immortality. And these are universal 
ideas. They have been believed in all times, in all 
places, by all peoples. You cannot travel so wide 
but you will find temples, or the ruins of temples, 
altars, worships. You cannot read so far back into 
the history of men, but you will find men thinking 
of God, praying to Him, trying to do right, loving 
their kind, looking beyond death to follow the souls 
of their friends into an unseen world. The forms 
which these ideas have taken have differed, and do 
differ ; depending upon national character, upon 
race, climate, degree of civilization ; sometimes 
buried under superstitions, sometimes coming out 
in simple forms and clear thought ; clothed in one 
form of words in the imaginative and dreamy East, 
in another in the practical West. In all ages, too, 
and peoples, the more enlightened have held the 
popular faith under a different aspect from the 
ignorant. In all ages and peoples, there have been 
individual men who have been above the level of 
their time, superior to the limitations of their race 
in a degree, though never entirely free from them ; 
men of finer organization, wiser mind, more sensitive 
spiritual perception, keener moral instincts ; lofty 
and saintly souls, who have striven to draw brother 
men away from superstition to truth, from baseness 
to virtue ; to awaken them to a more living faith in 
God, duty, immortality. These men have been rev- 
erenced as prophets, have counted themselves sent 
of God. They have been looked upon as his spe- 
cial messengers. About them generally, after their 
death, the reverence of their fellows, the imagination 



34 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

and wonder of men have gathered legends of mira- 
cles ; have attributed to them supernatural birth and 
supernatural powers ; have believed them incarna- 
tions of a descended God, or have raised them to 
demigods, and worshiped them. 



The first great religious idea is the idea of God. 
It is the idea of a mysterious Power superior to man, 
— creative, retributive, beneficent. With this idea 
the mind of man has always been haunted and pos- 
sessed ; and growing intelligence has not destroyed 
it, but only modified and elevated the forms of it. 
The idea is germinal in, and native to, the reason 
of man ; but his understanding, sentiment, and fancy 
have embodied it in many varying conceptions. We 
trace its presence and unfolding through the forms 
of Fetichism or Idolatry, Sabeism or Nature-wor- 
ship, Polytheism, Monotheism, to pure Theism, the 
conception of one universal infinite Spirit, whose 
immanent presence is the perpetual life of all things, 
whose infinite Personality includes and inspires all 
persons, while it transcends them; the "one God 
and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and 
in all/' 

Behind all idolatries and image worship there has 
always been a sense, more or less fully recognized, 
of an Invisible which they represented ; and the 
more intelligent have declared them to be only sym- 
bols, a condescension to the senses and imagination. 
Thus an English missionary relates that, standing 
with a venerable Brahman to witness the sacred 
images carried in pomp and cast into the Ganges, he 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 35 

said : " Behold your gods ; made with hands ; thrown 
into a river." "What are they, sir?" replied the 
Brahman ; " only dolls. That is well enough for the 
ignorant, but not for the wise." And he went on 
to quote from the ancient Hindu Scripture : " The 
world lay in darkness, as asleep. Then He who 
exists for himself, the most High, the Almighty, 
manifested himself and dispelled the gloom. He 
whose nature is beyond our reach, whose being 
escapes our senses, who is invisible and eternal, — 
He, the all-pervading Spirit, whom the mind cannot 
grasp, even He shone forth." x 

In like manner, wherever Polytheism has pre- 
vailed, there has been a vague sense of unity accom- 
panying it and growing clearer with growing intelli- 
gence. One of the gods comes to be regarded as 
supreme, and the others to be but his ministers or 
angels. The Jehovah of the Jews appears at first to 
have been conceived of as not the only God, but the 
special god of their nation, superior to the gods of 
the other nations. Thus, even in Homer, we find a 
tendency to gather up into Zeus, as centre and 
source, all the functions of the other divinities ; 2 a 
tendency which afterwards developed into the faith 
expressed in the magnificent Hymn of Kleanthes. 
The Egyptians believed in a "first God; Being 
before all and alone; Fountain of all." A very 
ancient inscription upon the tomb of Mentuhotep 
speaks of "Turn, the one Being, the great God, 
existing of himself, Creator, Lord of all gods." 3 In 

1 Laws of Mann, i. 5, 7. 

2 Denis, Histoire des Theories et des Idees Morales, i. 7. 
8 From the translation of Lepsius. 



36 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

the " Rig Veda," the most ancient collection of Hindu 
Hymns, we read: "They call Him Indra, Mithra, 
Varuna, Agni ; — that which is One the wise call in 
divers manners." And again: "The poets make 
the beautiful-winged, though He is One, manifold 
by their words." : So the later " Bhagavad Gita" 
speaks of "the Supreme, Universal Spirit, the Eter- 
nal Person ; divine, before all gods, omnipresent ; 
Creator and Lord of all that exists ; God of gods, 
Lord of the Universe." 2 And the " Vishnu Purana " 
says : " The one only God, the Adorable, takes the 
designation of Brahma, Vishnu, or Siva, accordingly 
as He creates, preserves, or destroys. He is the 
Supreme, the giver of all good." 3 The Aztecs of 
Mexico, with their more than two hundred deities, 
recognized one supreme Creator and Lord, whom 
they addressed in their prayers as " the God by whom 
we live," " omnipresent, that knoweth all thoughts 
and giveth all gifts," "without whom man is as 
nothing," "invisible, incorporeal; one God, of utter 
perfection and purity." 4 So the ancient Peruvians 
had their " Creator and Sustainer of Life ; " the 
American Indians, their Great Spirit, " Master of 
Life;" the Scandinavians, their "All-father." 

In the Masdean, or Zoroastrian, belief, Ormuzd 
(Ahuramazda) is spoken of as " omniscient, omnipo- 
tent, and omnipresent ; formless, self-existent, and 
eternal ; pure and holy ; Lord over all creatures in 

1 Rig Veda (b. c. 1500), i. 164, 46; and x. 14, 5. See Miiller, 
Chips, i. 29. 

2 Bhagavad Gita, chapter x. 

3 Wilson's translation, i. 41, 43. 

4 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, i. 57. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 37 

the universe ; the Refuge of those who seek his 
aid." He is invoked as "the Creator, the glorious, 
majestic, greatest, best, most fair, mightiest, wisest, 
highest in holiness ; who created us, who keeps us." x 
And where the forms of polytheistic mythology 
occupied the popular mind, the intelligent and phi- 
losophic have always regarded these as but shapes 
of the fancy, and taught a pure doctrine of the unity 
and spirituality of God. Xenophanes, as Aristotle 
relates, casting his eyes upward to the heavens, 
declared the One his God. He condemned the 
prevalent mythologies and the notions of God in 
human figure, and severely blamed Hesiod and 
Homer for their scandalous tales about the gods. 
He taught that "there is one supreme God among 
beings divine and human. . . . He governs all 
things by power of reason." The Pythagoreans 
taught the unity of God, and compared Him to a 
circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circum- 
ference nowhere. " There are not different gods for 
different nations,'" wrote Plutarch. "As there is 
one and the same sun, moon, sky, earth, sea, for all 
men, though they call them by different names ; so 
the One Spirit which governs this universe, the 
Universal Providence, receives among different 
nations different names." 2 "There is but one God, 
who pervades all," writes Marcus Aurelius, the 
Roman emperor. 3 "In all this conflict of opinions," 
says Maximus Tyrius, "know that through all the 

1 Avesta, Yanca, i. 1, 2. Bleeck's translation. Zoroaster was 
born b. c. 589. 

2 Cited by Denis, ii. 224. 

3 A. D. 121. Thoughts, vii. 9. 



38 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

world sound one consenting law and idea, that there 
is one God, the King and Father of all, and many 
gods, the children of God. This both the Greek 
and the Barbarian teach." And again he says, "I 
do not blame the variety of representations : only 
let men understand that there is but one Divine 
nature ; let them love one and keep one in their 
thoughts." 1 

Upon a temple at Delphi was the inscription EI, 
Thou art. And upon this Plutarch writes : "We 
say to God : Thou art ; giving Him thus his true 
name, the name which belongs alone to Him. For 
what truly is ? That which is eternal, which has 
never had beginning by birth, never will have end 
by death, that to which time brings no change. It 
would be wrong to say of Him who is, that He was 
or will be, for these words express changes and 
vicissitudes. But God is. He is, not after the fash- 
ion of things measured by time, but in an immovable 
and unchanging eternity. By a single Now He fills 
the Forever. For Deity is not many, but that which 
is must be one." 2 

Again, after denying the fable of the birth and 
education of Zeus, Plutarch says : " There is.nothing 
before him ; he is the first and most ancient of be- 
ings, the author of all things ; he was from the begin- 
ning ; too great to owe his existence to any other 
than himself. From his sight is nothing hid. . . . 
Night and slumber never weigh upon that infinite 
eye, which alone looks upon the truth. By him we 
see, from him we have all which we possess. Giver 
of all good, ordainer of all which is and which hap- 

1 Dissertations, 38. 2 On the WordYX, 17, 19, 20. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 39 

pens, it is he who gives all and makes all. In him 
are the beginning, the end, the measure, and destiny 
of everything." 1 

We are sometimes pointed to Buddhism as an in- 
stance of a religion without a God. That its primitive 
teaching was such I suppose must be admitted ; 
perhaps it was a reaction from the excessive devo- 
teeism or the corrupted worship of the Brahmans. 
But it was not long before the Buddha himself be- 
came an object of worship. And there is ample 
evidence that in our day the three hundred millions 
of Buddhists are not without a belief in God. In a 
Buddhist tract we read : " There appears in the law 
of Buddha only one Omnipotent Being. . . . He is 
a Supreme Being above all others ; and, although 
there are many gods, yet there is a Supreme who is 
God of the gods." 2 Hue relates a conversation with 
a Thibetan Lama, who said to him, " We must not 
confound religious truth with the superstitions which 
amuse the credulity of the ignorant. There is but 
one sole sovereign Being who has created all things. 
He is without beginning, and without end ; He is 
without body, He is a spiritual substance." 3 And 
Schlagintweit says, " In face of all these gods, the 
Lamas emphatically maintain monotheism to be the 
real character of Buddhism." And again he speaks 
of a chief Buddha, Adi Buddha, called " Supreme 
Buddha," "the Being without beginning or end," 

1 Cited by Denis, ii. 225. Plutarch was born a. d. 50. 

2 Upham's Sacred Books of Ceylon, iii. 13. In some of the tracts 
of this volume the existence of a Supreme Being is denied. Buddha 
died b. c. 548. 

3 Journey through Tartary, Thibet, etc., i. 121, 122. 



40 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

"the Supreme Intelligence, God above all." 1 So 
that evidently the statement, "that a third of the 
human race have lived and died without a belief in 
God," is altogether too strong. 

With the idea of God we find united the idea of 
providence, beneficence, and friendly care toward 
man. And from this, joined with a perception of a 
moral likeness between Him and man, sprang natu- 
rally in the heart and mind of men the conception 
of his fatherhood. This thought of God as our Fa- 
ther is often represented as the peculiar revelation 
of Jesus. But it was known and taught long before 
and far beyond Christianity. We find the name of 
Father familiarly given to the Supreme in India, 
Greece, and Rome. 

Thus we read in the "Rig Veda:" "May our 
Father, Heaven, be favorable to us. May that Eter- 
nal One protect us evermore. We have no other 
Friend, no other Father." "The Father of heaven, 
who is the Father of men." 

" Father of gods and of men," says Hesiod of 
Zeus. And " Father of gods and of men," echoes 
Homer; and again, "Zeus, most great and glorious 
Father." " Father omnipotent " is Virgil's phrase, 
and " the Father." In Horace we find, " Father and 
guardian of the human race ; " " the Parent who gov- 
erns the affairs of men and of gods ; " " the Father." 
Plutarch declares that " Zeus is by nature the Father 
of men ; and the best men he calls his sons." 2 " He, 
the glorious Parent, tries the good man and prepares 
him for himself," writes Seneca. 3 "God, of all 

1 Buddhism in Thibet, page 108. 2 Apophthegmata. 

3 De Providentia, i. 6. Seneca was born a. d. 3. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 41 

things which are Father and Maker, more ancient 
than the sun ; whom no voice can express, no eye 
behold," says Maximus Tyrius. And Epictetus, " If 
what philosophers say of the kinship between God 
and men be true, . . . why should not a man call 
himself a citizen of the universe? why not a son of 
God ? . . . Shall not having God for our Maker, Fa- 
ther, and Guardian free us from griefs and alarms ? " 
And again, speaking of Heracles, he says, " He 
knew that no human being is an orphan, but that 
there is a Father who incessantly cares for all. For 
he had not merely heard it said that Zeus is the Fa- 
ther of mankind, but he esteemed and called him 
his own Father, and in thought of him performed all 
his deeds." 1 

Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, says that " he who re- 
gards the whole universe as his country feels bound 
to seek the favor of its Father and Framer ; " 2 and 
again, " God, whose most fit name is Father ; " and 
"One Creator, one Father." 3 And in the Talmud 
we read : " Every nation has its special guardian 
angels ; Israel shall look only to Him. There is 
no mediator between those who are called his chil- 
dren and their Father which is in heaven." "As 
long as Israel is looking up to its Father which is 
in heaven it will live." " If we are called servants 
of God, we are also called his children." 4 In every 
synagogue in Judea and Galilee were recited at each 
service these sentences of prayer : " Be Thou mer- 

1 Discourses, i. 9 ; iii. 24. 

2 De Monarchia. Philo was born A. D. 27. 

3 Confusion of Languages, 33. 

4 London Quarterly Review, October, 1867. 



42 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

ciful unto us, our Father, for we have sinned." 
" Most merciful Father, pardon us." " Bring us back, 
O our Father, to the keeping of thy law." And 
daily in the temple was spoken the prayer, " Bless 
us, O our Father, all even as one, with the light of 
thy countenance." 1 

ii. 

The second great religious idea which I named is 
the Moral Idea ; the idea of Right, of Duty ; and 
the sense of the obligation of the Virtues. I call 
this religions ; I know it is often called " only 
moral.'" But if by moral be meant anything deeper 
than mere custom or habit or external good behav- 
ior ; if it go down to principles and laws felt to be 
of a creation and an obligation superior to human 
will, — then we are in the realm of the invisible, the 
eternal, in the realm of religion. Therefore I call 
righteousness an essential part of religion. To some 
men, who have little of devout sentiment, or who 
have speculative difficulties about belief in God, or 
in a God, morals or righteousness is the substance 
of their religion ; and, if it gives a sacred sanction 
and an immutable ground of nobleness to their lives, 
it is truly a religion. To the devout mind, the sen- 
timent and idea of right become identified with the 
will of God. Obedience to the law of our own being 
is obedience to his law ; his service is therefore 
perfect freedom, and finds its sacred sanction in like- 
ness to Him. 

We ought not to be surprised to find that the 
idea of right and wrong has been universal among 
1 See Prideaux and Lightfoot. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 43 

men. That is but saying that men have always been 
men ; have always had consciences, as they have al- 
ways had senses, affections, language, society. We 
ought not to be surprised that the virtues of justice, 
honesty, veracity, purity, have been inculcated and 
practiced under all forms of religion. Yet there are 
those who, on account of superficial diversities and 
differences of development, deny any universality in 
the moral ideas. They point, for instance, to the 
immoralities attributed to the gods in some of the 
polytheistic mythologies. But the wiser men in 
these nations disbelieved and denounced these 
fables. Thus we find Plato in his " Republic," at 
great length, blaming Hesiod and Homer for attrib- 
uting low morals to the gods, and declaring the 
falsity of such notions. 

But even among those who currently believed 
these things of the gods, the practice of them was 
not justified or approved among men. There was 
thought perhaps to be a different law for the Im- 
mortals, or only their own will. Just as, in Chris- 
tendom, God's mere will is thought to be for Him 
the only law of right. In Christian churches it is 
currently taught that He may justly do what in man 
would be monstrous cruelty. God is believed to 
spend eternity in burning alive those of his chil- 
dren who have disobeyed Him, or who have only not 
accepted his conditions of salvation ; or in subject- 
ing them to tortures of which burning alive would 
be a faint symbol. But the same act would not for 
a moment be justified, or be judged as other than 
monstrous cruelty, in a man. In the decadence of 
Rome, it became a fashion for the dissolute young 



44 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

men to take the names of the several gods, and 
addict themselves to their special vices ; but, of 
course, in that there was no serious belief of any 
kind. And precisely in these periods of corruption 
we find the wiser and better men lamenting the 
prevalence of vices, inveighing keenly against them ; 
in the name of religion urging a pure morality, en- 
deavoring to awaken the sense of personal virtue, 
and working reforms in morals and manners. v 

But it is urged that practices condemned by the 
conscience of one time and religion have been 
approved or commanded by that of some others. 
Doubtless these diversities in the application of 
moral judgments have existed, and do exist, accord- 
ing as the moral sense has been more or less enlight- 
ened and cultivated. I am not declaring the absolute 
uniformity of the moral, or the religious, conceptions 
or practices of men ; only the virtual universality 
and essential unity of the idea. Doubtless the 
diversities exist. But they have been exaggerated. 
And the difference is often on the surface, in the 
form of the act, and not in its quality or motive. 
Thus human sacrifices, so prevalent in primitive 
worships, are held up as instances of sanctioned 
cruelty. So they would be for us ; and always they 
mark, of course, a low state of religious and moral 
perception. But they were never offered in a mo- 
tive of cruelty. A religious feeling overrode the 
natural sentiment of humanity ; that sentiment was 
sacrificed in what was erroneously deemed a higher 
feeling, as in the tale of Abraham offering his son. 
Moreover, under the practice of human sacrifices lay 
the true idea of offering to God that which was most 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 45 

precious. Doubtless the young men who, among the 
Aztecs, were every year selected and prepared for 
the bloody rites of the god counted it a glory to 
be so consecrated, and went to the "teocalli " with 
something of the exalted sentiment with which a 
youth devotes himself to death in his country's 
defense. But the same religions which enjoined 
these bloody offerings to their gods enjoined among 
men the obligations of kindness and humanity. 
The Christian church proclaims daily the acceptable- 
ness to God of the great Human Sacrifice, pictures 
the body torn upon the cross, and dwells with ear- 
nest iteration upon the efficacy of the blood shed on 
Calvary, and its necessity to appease the wrath of 
God. But it inculcates at the same time on men 
pity, compassion, and justice. A sincere but mis- 
taken religious sentiment blinds it to the essential 
cruelty and injustice involved in God's acceptance 
of such a sacrifice as it depicts. 

With all the differences, then, in the culture of 
the moral sentiments, and in the application of moral 
judgments, we are justified in declaring the univer- 
sality of the moral idea. In no age or people has 
anything been approved because it was unjust, or 
that was seen at the same time to be unjust. More 
than this : we find, in widely different nations and 
times, the continual recurrence of the same moral 
injunctions, the inculcation of the same virtues. 

In the " Vishnu Purana," a Brahmanic scripture, 
we read : 1 — 

" The earth is upheld by the veracity of those 
who have subdued their passions, and, following 
1 Translation of H, H. Wilson, vol. iii. 



46 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

righteousness, are never contaminated with desire, 
covetousness, or wrath." " The Eternal makes not 
his abode in the heart of the man who covets an- 
other's goods, who injures any living creature, who 
utters harshness or untruth, who is proud in his 
iniquity, and whose thoughts are evil." 

" Kesava [a name of God] is most pleased with 
him who does good to others, who never utters 
calumny or falsehood, who never covets another's 
wife or another's goods, who does not smite or kill, 
who desires always the welfare of all creatures and 
of his own soul, whose pure heart takes no pleasure 
in the imperfections of love and hatred. The man 
who conforms to the duties enjoined in the Scripture 
is he who best worships Vishnu [God] ; there is no 
other way." 

"The duties incumbent alike on all classes are 
the support of one's own household, marriage for 
the sake of offspring, tenderness toward all crea- 
tures, patience, humility, truth, purity, freedom from 
envy, from repining, from avarice, from detrac- 
tion." 

" Know that man to be the true worshiper of 
Vishnu who, looking upon gold in secret, holds 
another's wealth but as grass, and directs all his 
thoughts to the Lord." "The Brahman must look 
upon the jewels of another as if they were but peb- 
bles." 

The five commandments of the Buddhist religion, 
which dates six centuries before the Christian era, 
and counts among its adherents more millions than 
any other church, are these : i. Thou shalt not kill. 
2. Thou shalt not steal. 3. Thou shalt not commit 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 4? 

adultery, or any impurity. 4. Thou shalt not lie. 
5. Thou shalt not intoxicate thyself with drink. 1 

I need not occupy space with quotations of moral 
precepts from the ethical writings of the Greek and 
Roman philosophers. A single sentence of Aris- 
totle sums them up : "In all times men have praised 
honesty, moral purity, beneficence. In all times 
they have protested against murder, adultery, per- 
jury, and all kinds of vice. No one will dare main- 
tain that it is better to do injustice than to bear it." 2 
So we find in Cicero, " The true law is everywhere 
spread abroad ; it is constant eternal. It calls us to 
duty by its commandments ; it turns us away from 
wrong-doing by its prohibitions. We can take no- 
thing from it, change nothing, abrogate nothing. 
Neither the Senate nor the people have the right 
to free us from it. It is not one thing at Rome, 
another at Athens ; one thing to-day, to-morrow an- 
other. But eternal and immutable, the same Law 
embraces all times and all nations. There is one 
Being alone who can teach it and impose it upon 
all ; that is, God." 3 

This same religious sanction of right-doing we 
find in various writers, urged with the motive of 
likeness to God. "God is just," says Plato, "and 
there is nothing that resembles Him more than the 
just man." 4 " The temperate [virtuous] man is dear 

1 Upham's Sacred Books of Ceylo?i. Sometimes five other com- 
mandments are added. 

2 Topic VIII. x., cited by Boutteville, La Morale, page 542. So 
Plato : " He who commits injustice is ever more wretched than he 
who suffers it." Gorgias, Bonn's translation, i. 177. Plato was born 
B. c. 430. 

3 Cited by Denis, Theories Morales, ii. 16. 

4 Thecvtetus, Rohn, i. 411. 



48 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

to God, for he is like Him." 1 . Zeno taught that 
"men ought to seek after perfection ; for God is 
perfect." 2 Epictetus says that he who would please 
and obey God must seek to be like Him. " He must 
be faithful as God is faithful ; free, beneficent, noble, 
as God is ; in all his words and actions behaving as 
an imitator of God." 3 " Love mankind ; follow God," 
wrote Marcus Aurelius. 4 

There is a celebrated moral rule which is called 
the Golden Rule of Christianity. Confucius, some 
five centuries before the Christian era, was asked, 
"Is there one word which may serve as a rule of 
practice for all one's life ? " The master replied, " Is 
not reciprocity such a word ? What you. do not wish 
done to yourself, do not to others." 5 Thales, first 
of the Greek philosophers, taught : " That which 
thou blamest in another do not thyself to thy neigh- 
bor;" and Isocrates : "Thou wilt deserve to be 
honored if thou doest not thyself what thou blamest 
in others." 6 " Let no one treat his brother in a way 
he would himself dislike," is a Sabean maxim, pre- 
served by El Wardi. In the fourth chapter of the 
so-called "apocryphal" book of Tobit, 7 among many 
other excellent precepts, we read, " Do to no man 
what thou thyself hatest." In the Jewish Talmud, 
also, we find, " Do not to another what thou wouldst 
not he should do to thee ; this is the sum of the 
law," given as one of the teachings of the Rabbi 

1 The Laws, Bohn, v. 140. 

2 Cited by Boutteville, page 531. Zeno was born b. c. 300. 

3 Discourses, ii. 14. 

4 Thoughts, vii. 31. 

5 Legge, Confucian Analects, xv. 22, 

6 Cited by Boutteville, page 533. 7 Circa 175 B.C. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 49 

Hillel, who died when Jesus, according to the com- 
mon reckoning, was ten years old. 1 

It is not merely external rules, nor outward good 
conduct alone, that we find inculcated in these uni- 
versal morals. The wise and good in all times have 
looked within the heart for the motive and quality 
of right action. Confucius continually urges the 
"having the heart right." "I keep pure my 
thoughts," says a Parsee hymn. And throughout 
the Zoroastrian scripture "good thoughts" are 
always joined with "good words and good works." 
" Seek to converse in purity with your own pure 
mind and with God," says Epictetus. " The first 
and highest purity is that of the soul." And he 
warns his disciple that he should not even look 
upon the wife of another with an impure thought. 2 
So Ovid: "It is not by locks and bars that a wo- 
man ought to be guarded, but by her own purity ; 
she who does not sin only because she is unable has 
really sinned ; her heart is adulterous." 3 And Juve- 
nal : " He who in the silence of his own thought 
plans a crime has upon him the guilt of the deed." 4 
"The good man," says Cicero, "not only will not 
dare to do, he will not even think what he dares not 
proclaim." 5 " Keep thy divine part pure," writes 
Marcus Aurelius ; and again, " Look within ; within 
is the fountain of good." "That which is hidden 
within, — that is the life, that is the man." 6 

So we shall not be surprised to find that not only 

1 London Quarterly Review, October, 1867. 

2 Discourses, ii. 18; iv. n. 3 Cited by Denis, ii. 124. 
4 Satires xiii. v. 209. 5 De Officiis^ iii. 19. 

r ' Thoughts, iii. 12 ; viL 29 ; x. 38. 



50 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

the conspicuous virtues are inculcated by the so- 
called " heathen " teachers ; the lowly and the pas- 
sive have their place and commendation. " Who- 
ever wishes to be happy," says Plato, " must attach 
himself to justice, and walk humbly and modestly in 
her steps. He who lets himself be puffed up with 
pride, devoured by ambitious desires, and thinks he 
has no need of master or guide, God abandons him 
to himself. He ends by destroying himself." 1 " Do 
what you know to be right without expecting any 
glory from it," is given as a saying of Demophilus, 
the Pythagorean ; and " Keep thy life hid," is said 
to have been one of the great maxims of the Epicu- 
reans. " Dear to all hearts is he whom lowliness 
exalts," is a Persian saying; 2 and another, "Make 
thyself dust to do anything well." " He who knows 
the light, and yet keeps the shade, will be the whole 
world's model," said Lao-tze ; and again, " He that 
humbles himself shall be preserved entire, — that 
is no vain utterance." " To attain God, the heart 
must be lowly," is a Hindu maxim. " Patience and 
resignation are the one road ; Buddha has declared 
no better path exists," says a Chinese scripture. It 
has even been objected that Buddhism unduly exalts 
the " passive virtues." "Who is the great man? 
He who is strongest in the exercise of patience, he 
who patiently endures injury," is a saying attributed 
to the Buddha himself. In the Brahmanic " Vishnu 
Purana," " Tenderness toward all, patience, humil- 
ity," are named among the "duties incumbent on 
all." 

1 Cited by Boutteville. 

2 This and the following sentences are from Conway's Sacred An- 



UXITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 5 I 

Humility is said to have had only an ignoble 
meaning with the Romans, but Epictetus, 1 who may 
have learned the lesson as a slave, recommends to 
his disciple to " train and perfect his will, and ren- 
der it noble, free, faithful, humble." And elsewhere 
he says, " Such will I show myself to you, faithful, 
modest, noble, tranquil, since Olympian Zeus him- 
self does not haughtily lift his brow." In his im- 
perial palace Marcus Aurelius could say to himself, 
" Take care that thou be not made into a Caesar. . . . 
Keep thyself simple, good, pure, . . . kind, affec- 
tionate." Again, " Make thyself all simplicity." 2 
He everywhere praises modesty, and commends the 
" sweetness " and " patience " of Antoninus. " The 
more exalted we are, the more lowly we ought to 
walk," said Cicero. 3 In the Talmud we read, " He 
who humbles himself will be lifted up ; he who ex- 
alts himself will be humbled." " He who offers 
humility before God and man shall be rewarded as 
if he had offered all the sacrifice in the world." And 
again, " He who gives alms in secret is greater than 
Moses." 4 So Seneca wrote, " That which is given 
to infirmity, to indigence, to honest poverty, ought 
to be given in secret, and known only to those who 
are benefited by it. . . . Such is the law of benefits 
between men, — the one ought to forget at once 
what he has given, the other never to forget what he 
has received." 5 And Plutarch, "The virtuous man 

1 Discourses, i. 4 ; ii. 8. 

2 Thoughts, vi. 30 ; iv. 28. 

3 De Officiis, i. 26. Cicero was born B. c. 106. 

4 London Quarterly Review, October, 186- . 

5 De Beneficiis. 



52 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

buries in silence his good deeds." " All thinking 
beings," says Marcus Aurelius, " have been made 
one for the other ; they owe patience one toward 
another." " 'T is against nature to cherish ill-will 
to him who is your neighbor, your kindred, your 
brother." 

in. 

And so we strike upon the sentiment of benevo- 
lence, the virtue of disinterestedness, the idea of 
Brotherhood. We shall find the inculcations of 
Love as widely spread as those of Justice. While 
inhumanity has always existed in the world, and 
selfishness and cruelty are certainly not yet outgrown, 
in all times there have been protests against them 
from the lips of the good, from the better heart of 
man. Always there have been kindness, forgive- 
ness, charity, and the inculcation of them. Those 
sweet waters have flowed ever from the perennial 
springs in the heart of man and of God, to refresh 
even the most desert places. " He who injures any 
living creature does it to God," says the " Vishnu 
Purana ; " " He is most pleased with the man who 
does good to others ; who bears ill-will to none." 
" The Brahman must ever seek to promote the 
good of others, for his best riches are benevolence 
to all." " He who feeds himself, and neglects the 
poor and the friendless stranger needing hospital- 
ity, goes to hell." " He who eats his food without 
bestowing any upon his guest eats iniquity." The 
Pythagoreans taught that the old ought to treat the 
young with benevolence ; and men to be kind to 
children, remembering that childhood is especially 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 53 

dear to God. We must bear one another's burdens, 
they said, but not lay burdens on any. Justice, 
they said, is the beginning of political equality, but 
brotherly love is the completion of it. If disputes 
or anger arose between any of his disciples, their 
master taught them to be reconciled before the sun 
should go down. 1 Iamblichus tells us that " Pytha- 
goras taught the love of all towards all." 2 In 
Confucius we find these notable words : " My doc- 
trine is simple and easy to understand. It consists 
only in having the heart right, and in loving one's 
neighbor as one's self." 3 And when one asked him 
about benevolence, he answered, " It is love to all 
men." 4 "We are by nature inclined to love men," 
says Cicero. 5 " Take away love and benevolence, 
and you take away all the joy of life." 6 " Kindness, 
justice, liberality, are more in accordance with our 
nature than the love of pleasure, of riches, or even 
of life." And he quotes with approval the maxim 
of the Stoics, that " men are born for the sake of 
men, that they may naturally benefit one another." 7 
" What good man, what religious man, will look 
upon the sufferings of others as foreign to him ? " 
writes Juvenal. 8 " Is there a better sentiment than 
compassion ? " says Ouintilian, " or one whose source 

1 Denis, i. 15, 16. 2 Boutteville, page 381, note. 

3 Pauthier's translation, page 130. He declares his version to be 
exact. Legge renders more verbosely and prosaically : "To be true 
to the principles of our nature, and the benevolent exercise of them 
to others." The two Chinese words, he says, mean literally centre- 
heai't and as-heart. Analects, iv. 15. 

4 Analects, xii. 22. 5 De Legibns, i. 15. 

6 De Amicitia. 7 De Officii s, iii. 5 ; i. 7. 

8 Satires, xv. 131. 



54 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

lies more in the most venerable and sacred princi- 
ples of nature ? God, the author of all things here 
below, wills that we should help one another. . . . 
If I have given bread to a stranger in the name of 
that universal brotherhood which binds together all 
men under the common Father of nature, would it 
not be a good deed to have saved a soul ready to 
perish ? " 1 Menander, the Greek dramatist, has 
these beautiful sentences : " To live is not to live 
for one's self alone. Let us help one another. Let 
us learn to have pity upon the sorrows of others, 
that they may with cause have compassion upon 
ours. Help the stranger, for thou mayest one day 
be a stranger. Let the rich man remember the 
poor ; for the poor belong to God." 2 

"Will you not bear with your brother," cries 
Epictetus, " who has God for his Father, his son as 
thou art, of the same high descent ? " 3 Notice this 
religious motive urged for brotherly love. And 
again, " Will you not remember over whom you bear 
rule, that they are by nature your kindred, your 
brothers, offspring of God?" — speaking of slaves. 
Epictetus had himself been a» slave. The poet 
Terence, who had known the same hard experience, 
had plucked from it the same flower of sympathy 
for his fellows. His sentence, " I am a man, no- 
thing human can I count foreign to me," has become 
almost a proverb. Menander, before him, had said 
in almost the same words, "No man is a stranger to 
me, provided he be a good man. For we have all 
the one and the same nature, and it is virtue alone 

1 Cited by Denis, ii. 156. 2 Menander was born B. c. 342. 

3 Discourses, i. 13. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 55 

which makes the true kindred." So Marcus Aure- 
lius : " The good man remembers that every rational 
being is his kinsman, and that to care for all men is 
according to man's nature." " We are made for 
cooperation ; to act against one another, then, is 
contrary to nature." " We are created especially 
for the sake of one another." "It is the proper 
work of a man to be benevolent to his kind." 1 

The doctrine of the Brotherhood of Man has been 
declared to be found in Christian teaching alone. 
It is difficult to find it in the Gospels ; the single 
sentence usually quoted having reference only to 
the small company of Christian disciples. Paul 
states it in one passage : " God has made of one 
blood all the nations of men." But the idea was 
already familiar to the heart and mind of good men. 
Denis, in his learned and interesting work on the 
" Moral Theories and Ideas of Antiquity," from 
which many of my quotations have been gathered, 
says that "Diodorus proposed to himself to write a 
universal history on the ground that men everywhere 
belong to one family." Plutarch speaks of "that 
admirable republic imagined by Zeno, the founder 
of the Stoic sect," which shows us "that all men 
are our countrymen and fellow-citizens ; " and he 
adds that " Zeno left this description as the dream 
or imagination of equity and of a philosophic repub- 
lic ; but what he taught, Alexander realized. Con- 
ceiving that he was sent of God to unite all to- 
gether, he formed of a hundred diverse nations one 
single universal body ; mingling, as it were, in one 
cup of friendship the customs and laws of all." 2 

1 Thoughts, iii. 4 ; ii. 1 ; viii. 56, 26. 2 De Fort. Alexand. 



$6 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

"The love of mankind," — " caritas generis hu- 
mani" — is Cicero's beautiful phrase; 1 and the ex- 
pression "the fellowship of the human race" often 
recurs in his writings. 2 " A man must believe him- 
self born not for himself, but for the whole world," 
writes Lucan ; and he foretells the time when " the 
human race will lay aside its weapons, and all nations 
will love each other." 3 " We are members of one 
great body ; nature has made us kindred . . . and 
implanted in us mutual love," — these are the words 
of Seneca. 4 

But this is not all. We find among the writers 
of "heathen " antiquity, not merely the inculcation 
of kindness, compassion, benevolence ; these find 
their highest expression in the doctrine of forgive- 
ness of enemies. No doubt we find the lex talionis ; 
the Greek ^Eschylus, with his " evil for evil," 
matches the Hebrew " eye for eye." But it was 
also a Hebrew proverb, " If thine enemy hunger, 
give him bread to eat ; if he thirst, give him water 
to drink." 5 The Pythagoreans taught that if, in 
the state, the law recompensed evil with evil, pri- 
vate men ought, on the contrary, to injure none, 
but to support patiently wrongs and insults. 6 Pit- 
tacus, one of the seven wise men of Greece, taught 
that clemency is preferable to vengeance, which 
brings remorse; that "it is better to pardon than 
to punish;" and said, "Do not speak ill of your 
friends ; no, not even of your enemies." So Cleo- 
bulus said that " we ought to be kind to our friends, 

1 De Finibus. 2 De Officiis, i. 44 ; iii. 6. De Amicitia. 

3 Pharsalia, ii. ; v. 38. 4 Epistolce, 95. 

5 Proverbs xxv. 21. 6 Denis, i. 14. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS $y 

to make them more than our friends ; and to our 
enemies, to make them our friends." Confucius 
thought that we " ought to repay injuries with jus- 
tice, and unkindness with kindness ; " * and his coun- 
tryman Lao-tze had said, " The wise man avenges 
his injuries by benefits." 2 Plato reports Socrates 
as saying, " Neither ought one who is injured to 
return the injury, as the multitude think, since it 
is on no account right to do injustice. It is not 
right, therefore, to return an injury, or to do evil 
to any man, however we may have suffered from 
him." 3 In later times Cicero teaches a similar les- 
son. " Let us not listen," he says, " to those who 
think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and 
believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is 
more praiseworthy, nothing more marks a great and 
noble soul, than clemency and the readiness to for- 
give." 4 And Valerius Maximus, the Roman histo- 
rian, says still better : " It is more beautiful to over- 
come injury by the power of kindness than oppose 
to it obstinacy and hatred." 5 In Seneca and Epic- 
tetus, the like sentiments are found. Marcus Au- 
relius compares the wise and humane soul to a spring 
of pure and sweet water, which, though the passer-by 
may curse it, continues to offer him a draught to 
assuage his thirst ; and, even if he cast into it mire 
and filth, hastens to reject it, and flows on pure and 
undisturbed. 6 This recalls the equally beautiful 
image in the Oriental scripture of the sandal-tree, 

1 Analects, xxv. 36. 

2 Tao-te-king (translation of Stan. Julien), ii. 73. 

3 Crito y Bonn, i. 38. 4 De Officiis, i. 25. 

5 iv. 2. 6 Thoughts, viii. 51. 



58 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

which, in the moment when it falls before the wood- 
man's stroke, gives its fragrance to the axe which 
smites it with death. 

I cannot better close this part of my subject than 
by quoting that fine passage from Epictetus where 
he draws the picture of the true " Cynic," as he calls 
him, as men now say the true " Christian." " The 
Cynic must fence himself with virtuous shame. . . . 
He must purify his soul. . . . He must know that 
he is a messenger sent from Zeus to men to teach 
them of good and evil. . . . He must tell them the 
truth, without fear. . . . He must consult the Di- 
vinity, and attempt nothing without God. . . . He 
will needs be smitten, yet he must love those who 
smite him, as being the father, the brother, of all. 
. . . When he rebukes, he will do it as a father, as 
a brother, as the minister of the Father of all. . . . 
He must have such patience as to seem insensible 
and like a stone to the vulgar. . . . Instead of arms 
and guards, conscience will be his strength. For 
he knows that he has watched and toiled for man- 
kind, that he has slept pure and waked purer, and 
that he has regulated all his thoughts as the minis- 
ter of Heaven." x 

I am tempted to add as a companion picture that 
which Marcus Aurelius draws of the good man. 
" He is as a priest and minister of the gods ; devoted 
to that divinity which hath its dwelling within him ; 
by virtue of which the man is uncontaminable by 
any pleasure, invulnerable to every grief, inviolable 
to every injury, insensible to all malice; a fighter 
in the noblest fight, dyed deep with justice, accept- 

1 Discourses, ii. zz. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 59 

ing with all his soul that which the Providence of 
the Universe appoints him. He remembers also 
that every rational being is his kinsman, and that to 
care for all men is in accordance with the nature of 
man." 1 

IV. 

The last great Religious Idea which I named is 
that of Immortality, or the continued life of the soul 
after the body's death. 

It may surprise those who have been brought up 
in a different view, but I believe it to be the simple 
fact, that no truth of religion has been more uni- 
versal than this. In all ages of which any history 
has come to us, in nearly all nations of which we 
have any trustworthy account, we find this faith ; 
not a hope merely, not "one guess among many," 
but a confidence, a practical assurance, a faith to 
live by and to die by. Hardly a people so savage 
but some traces of it are discoverable ; none so 
civilized that they have outgrown it ; an essential 
element in all religions. Superstitions and foolish 
fancies about it in plenty, no doubt ; but revealed 
through them all the central idea, the inner belief. 
From the wisest and best in different ages and 
nations the clearest statements of faith in it. No 
doubt, rude nations have had rude conceptions of it ; 
no doubt, as nations grew more advanced the old 
mythologies about it lost their hold, and were dis- 
carded even with ridicule as unworthy the belief of 
thinking men ; and some men with the going of the 
fables lost their faith also in the idea. But in those 

1 Tkoztgkts, iii. 4. 



60 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

very times some of the wisest and best men sought 
to rescue the faith and establish it on a deeper 
basis. The idea survived the form which it had 
cast off. 

Caesar tells us of the ancient Gauls, that, " to 
arouse their courage, by taking away the fear of 
death, the Druids preach that souls do not die." 2 
And Pomponius Mela says that they believe " that 
souls are eternal, and that there is another life." 2 
And Valerius Maximus confirms the statement : 
" They are persuaded that the souls of men are 
immortal." 3 

In later times, Spanish conquerors go to Mexico 
and Peru, and find the faith in immortality, as in 
God, already there. 4 Roman Catholic missionaries 
visit India, China, Thibet, and find it there; go 
among the North American Indians, and find it 
there. Dr. Livingstone, the English missionary, 
penetrates into the interior of Africa, and brings 
home this report : " There is no necessity for begin- 
ning to tell even the most degraded of these people 
of the existence of God, or of a future state, these 
facts being universally admitted. . . . On question- 
ing intelligent men among the Bakwains as to their 
former knowledge of good and evil, of God, and of 
a future state, they have scouted the idea of their 
ever having been without a tolerably clear concep- 
tion on all these subjects. . . . They fully believe 
in the soul's continued existence apart from the 
body, and visit the graves of relatives, making offer- 

1 De Bello Gallico, vi. 14. 

2 De Situ Orbis, \\. 2. 3 ii. I, 10. 
4 Frescott, Conquest of Mexico, i. 62, 89. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 6 1 

ings." 1 There are travelers, indeed, who report 
tribes that have belief neither in immortality nor in 
God. If it be so, we must regard these as excep- 
tional instances, where the native human faiths are 
yet undeveloped. 

The Jewish Scriptures of the Old Testament con- 
tain only faint intimations of a future life. This is 
the more remarkable since the belief was so strongly 
held in Egypt at and before the time of Moses. 
Perhaps the beliefs of their oppressors were hateful 
to them. Be this as it may, we find the immortality 
of the soul clearly taught in the " apocryphal " books 
of Alexandrian-Jewish origin. It seems also to have 
been brought back by the Jews from their contact 
with the Persians in the Babylonian captivity. 
Certainly before the advent of Christianity it was 
the common belief of the nation, except among the 
sect of Sadducees. At least the doctrine of the 
"resurrection from the dead" was so. 

Probably the oldest existing record of man's faith 
in a future life is the ancient Egyptian " Book of the 
Dead," or " Funeral Ritual." Its chapters are found 
inscribed on mummy cases, or written upon rolls of 
papyrus within them. It is believed to date as far 
back as two thousand years before the Christian era. 
It might well be called the Book of Life, for it is full 
of an intense vitality; and this vivid sense of life 
shines through all that is obscure, strange, and ex- 
travagant in its details. It recounts the experiences 
of the human soul after death ; its passage in the 
mystic boat through the land of darkness to the 
blessed fields ; its trial in the " Hall of the Two 

1 Missionary Travels +n South Africa, pages 176, 686. 



62 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

Truths " (or the " twofold judgment ") before Thoth, 
the Lord of Truth, and the forty-two judges, to each 
of whom it declares its innocence of the offense he 
specially sits to condemn ; the placing its heart in 
the balance against an image of Righteousness ; the 
declaration of its innocence ; its passage through 
the initiatory trials to the Blessed Land and the 
presence of the god Osiris, its Father, in the 
eternal " dwelling-place of the prepared spirit." I 
quote some passages from this remarkable book. 
" The osiris [that is, the soul, taking the name of its 
father god] lives after he dies. Every god rejoices 
with life ; the osiris rejoices with life as they re- 
joice. Let the osiris go; he passes from the gate, 
he sees his father, Osiris ; he makes a way in the 
darkness to his father ; he is his beloved ; he has 
come to see his father ; he has pierced the heart of 
Set [the Evil Spirit] to do the things of his father 
Osiris ; he is the son beloved of his father. He 
has come a prepared spirit. . . . He moves as the 
never-resting gods in the heavens. . . . The osiris 
says, ' Hail Creator, self-created, do not turn me 
away, I am one of thy types on earth. ... I join 
myself with the noble spirits of the Wise in Hades.' 
. . . ' O ye lords of truth, I have brought you 
truth ; I have not privily done evil against any 
man ; I have not been idle ; I have not made any to 
weep ; I have not murdered ; I have not defrauded ; 
I have not committed adultery; I am pure, I am 
pure.' . . . Let the osiris go ; he is without sin, with- 
out crime ; he lives upon truth ; he has made his de- 
light in doing what men say and the gods wish ; he 
has given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 63 

clothes to the naked ; his mouth is pure, his hands 
are pure. . . . His heart goes to its place in the 
balance complete. . . . The Father of the spirit has 
examined and proved him. He has found that the 
departed fought on earth the battle of the good 
gods, as his Father the Lord of the invisible world 
had commanded him. . . . O God, the protector of 
him who has brought his cry to thee, he is thine, let 
him have no harm ; let him be as one of thy flying 
servants. Thou art he, he is thou. Make it well 
with him in the world of spirits." 1 

In the Hindu Vedas we find also the faith in im- 
mortality. Yama, the god of the dead, " waited, en- 
throned in immortal light, to welcome the good into 
his kingdom of joy." There were "the homes he 
had gone to prepare for them," " where the One Be- 
ing dwells beyond the stars." 2 " Where there is 
eternal light, in that immortal, imperishable world 
place me," sings a Vedic burial hymn. " Where the 
secret place of heaven is, . . . where life is free, 
. . . where joy and pleasure abide, where the de- 
sires of our desire are attained, there make me im- 
mortal." 3 " Let him depart," says another, " to the 
heroes who have laid down their lives for others, — 
to those who have bestowed their gifts on the poor." 
And in the later Brahmanic scripture, the " Vishnu 
Purana," we read, "He who speaks wisely, moder- 
ately, kindly, goes [after death] to those worlds which 

1 See Birch's translation of the " Book of the Dead," in Bunsen's 
Egypt's Place, etc., vol. v. 

2 Rig Veda, x. See S. Johnson's Oriental Religions, " India," page 
128. 

3 Rig Veda, ix. 113, 7, cited in M. Miiller's Chips, i. 46. 



64 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

are the inexhaustible sources of happiness. He who 
is intelligent, modest, devout, who reverences wis- 
dom and respects his superiors and the aged, goes 
to the highest heaven." " He who feeds himself, 
and neglects the poor and friendless stranger, goes 
to hell." 2 So in the " Bhagavad Gita : " " There is 
another invisible, eternal existence superior to this 
visible one, which does not perish when all things 
perish. Those who attain this never return. This is 
my supreme abode." 2 

Buddhism teaches the same doctrine. " There is 
undoubtedly a life after this," says a Buddhist tract, 
" in which the virtuous may expect the reward of 
their good deeds. . . . Wicked men, on the con- 
trary, are after death born into hell, as animals. If 
they have done any good deed in their lifetime, they 
are after a long time released from punishment, and 
born into the world again as men. If they abstain 
from evil, and do good, they may reach the state of 
felicity, a place full of joy and delight. Judgment 
takes place immediately after death." 3 

Beyond all the heavens, into which in turn the 
good are born in their ascending course, Buddhism 
(as well as Brahmanism) presents a state which is 
the object of all devout aspiration, — the final re- 
ward of the highest devotion and virtue. It is called 
Nirvana. Some writers have insisted that it means 
annihilation. But others, equally learned, interpret 
it, with far more probability as it appears to me, to 
be merely the end of the soul's transmigrations, the 

1 Wilson's translation, iii. 121, 144. 

2 Thompson's translation, page 60. 

8 Upham's Sacred Books of Ceyloti, iii. 158. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 6$ 

cessation of the re-births into the pain and trouble 
of this world ; not annihilation, but perfect rest, ab- 
solute peace. 1 

The religion of Zoroaster taught to the Persians 
the same great truth. It promised to all who should 
faithfully keep the law of God, in purity of thought, 
speech, and act, " when body and soul have sepa- 
rated, the attainment of paradise in the next world ; " 
while the disobedient " after death will have no part 
in paradise, but will occupy the place of darkness 
destined for the wicked." 2 

In Greece, where there were no sacred books, no 
"holy scriptures" as such, but where the poets and 
the philosophers were the religious teachers of the 
people, we find no less the doctrine, and the popular 
belief, of Immortality. This popular belief, founded 
on the pictures which the poets' fancy had painted, 
is familiar to all. Hades, the world of spirits ; the 
Judges, Minos, ^Eacus, and Rhadamanthus ; Tarta- 
rus, the abode of darkness and punishment ; the 
Elysian fields, blooming with asphodel, radiant with 
perpetual sunshine, where parted friends meet again, 
"where life is ever sweet, and sorrow is not, nor 
winter, nor any rain or storm." Sophocles puts into 
the mouth of the dying Antigone the strongly cher- 
ished hope that she should be welcomed by her 
father, her mother, her brother, in that other world. 3 
In Pindar we read, " An honorable and virtuous man 

1 See S. Johnson's Oriental Religions, page 619 ; and Midler's 
Introduction to his translation of the Dhammapada. 

2 Avesta : Spiegel, i. 171 ; cited by Alger, Doctrine of Future Life, 
page 136. 

3 Antigone, 897. 



66 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

may rest assured as to his future fate. The souls of 
the lawless departing this life suffer punishment. 
But the good lead a life without a tear, among those 
honored by the gods for having always delighted in 
virtue." 1 One of the golden verses of Pythagoras 
is this : " When thou shalt have laid aside thy body, 
thou shalt rise freed from mortality, and become a 
god of the kindly skies;" as we should say, "an 
angel." "Those who have lived in justice and 
piety," says Plutarch, " fear nothing after death. 
They look for a divine felicity. As they who run a 
race are not crowned till they have conquered, so 
good men believe that the reward of virtue is not 
given them till after death. Eager to flee away from 
the body and from the world to a glorious and 
blessed abode, they free their thoughts as much as 
in them lies from the things that perish." And 
again : " Not by lamentations and mournful chants 
ought we to celebrate the funeral of the good man, 
but by hymns ; for, in ceasing to be numbered with 
mortals, he enters upon the heritage of a diviner 
life." 2 

For the thoughts of Plato upon this question we 
turn of course to his famed book, " Phaedon." Under 
the form of a report of the conversation of Socrates 
with his disciples just before his death, he gives his 
Master's ideas, or his own, upon the immortality and 
future state of the soul, with the arguments by which 
the conclusions are reached. These arguments, 
long, curious, and elaborate, can have little weight 
with us ; but the conclusions are definite and plain. 

1 Second Olympic, cited by Alger. 

2 Cited by Denis, ii. 225, 263. 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 67 

As a thoughtful and conservative writer has well 
said, "The reasoning of Socrates in favor of im- 
mortality is far from clear, but not so his faith in 
immortality itself." 1 We find accordingly such 
sentences as these : — 

"Can the soul which is invisible, and which goes 
to a place like itself excellent, pure, invisible, to the 
presence of a good and wise God (whither, if God 
will, my soul almost must shortly go), — can this soul 
of ours, being of such a nature, when separated from 
the body be immediately dispersed and destroyed, 
as the many assert ? Far from it." "When, there- 
fore, death approaches a man, the mortal part of him, 
as it appears, dies ; but the immortal part departs 
safe and incorruptible, having withdrawn itself from 
death." "The soul, therefore, is most certainly im- 
mortal and imperishable, and our souls really exist 
in the world of spirits." "Those who shall have 
sufficiently purified themselves by philosophy [reli- 
gion] shall live without their bodies, received into 
more beautiful mansions." After a long and minute 
description of the circumstances and scenery of the 
future state, he adds: "To affirm positively that 
these things are exactly as I have described them 
does not become a man of sense ; that, however, 
either this, or something of the kind, takes place with 
respect to our souls and their habitations, this 
appears to me to be most fitting to be believed, since 
the soul is evidently immortal." " For the sake of 
these things we should use every endeavor to acquire 
virtue and wisdom in this life ; for the reward is 
noble and the hope is great." "A man ought, then, 

1 Rev. Ichabod Nichols. D. Q., Horns with Evangelists, page 90. 



68 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

to have confidence about his soul, if during this life 
he has made it beautiful with temperance, justice, 
fortitude, freedom, and truth ; he waits for his en- 
trance into the world of spirits as one who is ready 
to depart when destiny calls." " I shall not remain, 
I shall depart. Do not say, then, that Socrates is 
buried ; say that you bury my body." 

Cicero tells us that the Stoics believed in a con- 
tinued life after death, but not in an endless immor- 
tality. His own faith has been thought to have 
been variable, or at least his expression of it ; though 
I think that with him, as with Plato, the "if" is 
often of argumentation and not of doubt ; and, with 
Lecky, I find in his writings " a firm and constant 
reference to the immortality of the soul." " As an 
eternal God," he says, " moves the mortal world, so 
an immortal soul moves our frail body." 2 And, again, 
" The origin of souls cannot be found upon this 
earth, for there is nothing earthly in them. They 
have faculties which claim to be called divine, and 
which can never be shown to have come to man 
from any source but God. That nature in us which 
thinks, which knows, which lives, is celestial, and 
for that reason necessarily eternal. God himself 
can be represented only as a free Spirit, separate 
from matter, seeing all things, and moving all things, 
Himself ceaselessly working. Of this kind, from 
this nature, is the human soul." " Although you do 
not see the soul of man, as you do not see God ; yet, 
as from his works you acknowledge Him, so from 
memory, from invention, from all the beauty of 
virtue, do thou acknowledge the divine nature of the 

1 Somnium Scipionis, 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 69 

soul. It cannot be destroyed." 1 He represents the 
aged Cato as exclaiming, " O glorious day when I 
shall remove from this confused crowd to join the 
divine assembly of souls. For I shall go to meet not 
only those great men of whom I have spoken, but 
my own son Cato, for whom I have performed the 
funeral rites, which he should rather have rendered 
to me. His spirit has never deserted me; but de- 
parted, looking back upon me, to that place whither 
he knew that I should soon come. If I have borne 
his loss with courage, it is not that my heart was 
unfeeling ; but I have consoled myself with the 
thought that our separation would not be for long." 2 

With these words of undying affection and faith, 
I bring my quotations to a close. 

How beautifully sound these consenting voices 
from East to West, from century to century, utter- 
ing the great Beliefs of the human race. Into what 
a " large place " they summon us out of all narrow 
limits of sect and church, even beyond Christianity 
itself, into that great and universal Church of the 
race, whose unity is the unity of the spirit, whose 
fellowship is the brotherhood of great faiths, sacred 
principles, and spiritual ideas. One Truth, one 
Right, one Love, one immortal Faith ; the Reason, 
the Conscience, the Heart of man, in all times and 
under all skies, essentially identical ; and over all 
one God and Father of all, giving to all his inspira- 
tion and his revelations as they are able to receive ! 

The passages which I have gathered into this paper 
are but a scanty gleaning from a broad and rich 
field. Of course, a good deal of a less interesting, 

1 Tusc. Qincst. i. - Cato Major, 



7<D UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

less elevated, even opposite, character may be gath- 
ered from the like sources. But its existence does 
not invalidate what I have presented. I have made 
no claim for entire uniformity, but only for a virtual 
universality in the great ideas. I do not say that 
every man has believed, but that among all peoples, 
and in all times of which we have account, these 
beliefs have existed ; that they perpetually recur, 
indicating a natural gravitation of the human mind 
toward them ; that they are the common property of 
the human race, and not the exclusive possession of 
any special people or religion. The soul of man, 
human nature, bears these ideas and sentiments of 
God, of Right, of Love, and of Immortality as cer- 
tainly, as naturally, as generally, as the earth under 
all climes produces plants and trees. Superficial 
variations, of place, climate, race, culture, we find ; 
but we find essential unity of idea. 

We have been reading some verses from the 
Scriptures of the Universal Church, — man in his 
religious relations. This is the Broad Church, 
which not only stretches beyond barriers of sects, 
Romanist or Protestant, but reaches as wide as the 
world of man. It is as ancient as it is broad. It 
has a past which far antedates that from which we 
are so frequently warned or entreated not to sever 
ourselves. Its antiquity does not stop with Judea 
eighteen hundred years ago, but reaches centuries 
beyond. This is the birthright Church of man. It 
is founded on the rock of man's spiritual nature, 
" normally and forever God's Revealer." Its com- 
mon thought is in that ground-idea of God which lies 
back of all the various conceptions of God. Its 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS J l 

common life is in that mysterious disposition, that 
native and irrepressible tendency toward the invis- 
ible and the infinite, that universal sentiment of rev- 
erence and of dependence upon a superior Power, 
Goodness, and Right, which make man to be, by 
force of his nature, in all time and place, a religious 
being. Overarching all, like the universal sky ; en- 
compassing and inspiring all, like the universal 
air ; vitalizing and informing all, like the universal 
electric force ; binding and drawing all, like the uni- 
versal attraction and gravitation, this idea of God, 
of his love and his law, this religious conscious- 
ness, unites earth's millions in the humilities and 
aspirations of prayer ; it moves them to deeds of 
benevolence and justice; it charms them ever with 
the ideal of a better world, a perfected society, a 
kingdom of God upon earth, a heaven of immor- 
tality beyond. It creates always its prophets and 
preachers, men of keener conscience, intenser en- 
thusiasm for truth and right ; always its saints, men 
of tenderer piety, deeper inward life, profounder 
spirituality ; always its reformers, seeking to awaken 
men from dead forms to living faith and righteous- 
ness ; always its martyrs, bearing the reproach of 
truth and the cross of suffering humanity ; always 
its heretics, questioning all traditions, demanding 
light and liberty; always its radicals, protesting 
against superstitions and mythologies, and breaking 
down idols. " Before these vast facts of God and 
Providence," says an English writer, "the difference 
between man and man dwarfs into nothing. These 
are no discoveries of our own with which we can 
meddle, but revelations of the Infinite, which, like 



72 UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

the sunlight, shed themselves on all people alike, 
wise and unwise, good or evil ; and they claim and 
permit no other acknowledgment from us than the 
simple obedience of our lives and the plainest con- 
fession of our lips." 

Religious is a higher and broader word than 
Christian ; and so is human. Jewish, Brahman, 
Buddhist, Parsee, Mohammedan, — these, too, are 
churches of the One Living God, the Father of all. 
With advancing light, thoughtful men in all of them 
will come out of what is peculiar and special in each, 
and so local and temporary, into the broad ground 
of universal, spiritual religion, which is Piety, Right- 
eousness, Humanity ; that belief in God and in man 
which is the creed of all creeds. 

If ever in the isolation of our individualism we 
are ready to envy the churchman his sense of mem- 
bership in a great body of brave and consecrated 
men and women, whose lips have uttered for cen- 
turies the same sacramental words, then may the 
better thought come to us, that we are indeed, if we 
will, members of this and of a yet grander company, 
from whom the churchman cuts himself off. For 
he, after all, is the schismatic. Look beneath names 
and words, and feel the life of the invisible, spiritual 
host of all righteous, true, heroic, saintly souls, made 
ours, if we are in sympathy with them, not by any 
external organization, but by a spiritual law. Its 
sacramental words are God, Duty, Love, Immortality. 
These, written in many tongues upon its banner, 
have given vigor to more hearts and met more eyes 
lifted unfaltering in death, than any one church or 
one religion can count within its pale. This is the 



UNITY OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 73 

Eternal Gospel ; this the true Church Catholic ; the 
Church not of Rome, nor of England ; the Church 
not of Buddha, nor of Moses, nor of Christ ; but of 
God and Man. 

1875. From Freedom and Fellowship in Religion. 






NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 

In recent discussions, not yet ended, in which the 
words natural and supernatural often occur, some 
preliminary definitions might have been of use, and 
still may be. 

There are two meanings of the word nature in 
common use. The first is, — and this is what we 
generally mean by it, — the outward, material world. 
In this sense, we distinguish God, Man, Nature ; we 
speak of the beauties of Nature, of the laws of Na- 
ture. In this sense, nattcral becomes synonymous 
with material or physical, as when we speak of the 
natural sciences. In this sense, by Natural Religion 
is meant such knowledge of God as is obtained, or 
supposed to be obtained, from the study of the phy- 
sical world. 

The second meaning of nature is the original con- 
stitution of things, or of any thing or being. In this 
sense we speak of human nature, of the Divine Na- 
ture. Natural now becomes synonymous with native 
or normal ; that which grows out of the original con- 
stitution, or is in accordance with the essential law, 
of any thing or being. It is in this sense that we 
say that religion is natural to man, meaning that its 
germs lie in his original constitution, the orderly 
development of which will certainly bring him, and 
have brought him, to religious ideas. In this sense it 
is that we say that Christianity is a Natural Religion, 



NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 75 

meaning that it grew out of the native relations 
of the human spirit with God; that it was a normal 
growth, and not a special interpolation or miraculous 
interposition. 

Corresponding to these two meanings of Nature 
and Natural, we have two meanings of supernatural. 
In the first case, supernatural is synonymous with 
supcrsensuous, or supermaterial, as when Coleridge 
says, "The spiritual is eo nomine supernatural." In 
this sense, we say that all Religion is supernatural ; 
meaning that it cannot be discovered by the senses, 
or the practical understanding of man, but is revealed 
only in his spiritual nature ; that it springs from his 
relation to a higher than the outward world. In the 
second case supernatural is synonymous with mirac- 
ulous. In this sense it is customary to speak of 
Christianity as a supernatural revelation ; meaning 
that it is something out of the uniform line of law, 
something beyond the reach of the native human 
powers, something introduced into humanity in an 
unparalleled way, "a special interpolation into the 
current of human history." In this sense the dis- 
believers in the miracles of the New Testament are 
said to " deny the supernatural in the Gospels," and 
are called anti-supernaturalists. 

Now I suppose the ambiguity of meaning in these 
words has sometimes led to misunderstanding be- 
tween "old school " and "new school," "Conserva- 
tive" and " Radical." And it would help matters if 
the sense in which they are used in any particular 
case were always made clear. I do not mean that 
the difference between the parties is only a differ- 
ence of words, for it is not ; it is a difference of ideas. 



y6 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 

There happens, however, a curious twist. Those 
who use natural in the first sense use supernatural 
in the second. When they speak of Natural Reli- 
gion, they mean the religious ideas derived from out- 
ward nature ; but when they declare Christianity to 
be supernatural they do not mean inward or super- 
material, but miraculous. On the other hand, those 
who use natural in the second sense use supernat- 
ural in the first. We say that all Religion is nat- 
ural ; that is, that it is the growth of man's original 
native powers and relations. But we say that we 
believe all religion (including Christianity) to be 
supernatural, because it is beyond the reach of the 
senses and the understanding working in nature, 
and is revealed from above into man's spirit. And 
we declare that we believe more in the supernatural 
than those who call us anti-supernaturalists, because 
we believe spiritual revelation to be perpetual and 
universal, and not confined to a few men in one age 
and corner of the world. 

Perhaps, however, we should do our part toward 
clearness if we should, however reluctantly, give over 
the use of the word supernatural to the Miraculist. 
For we are now more earnestly engaged in urging 
the naturalness of religion ; its ground in human 
nature, and in the original relations of the human 
with the Divine Nature. Our work is to proclaim 
the sacredness and trustworthiness of man's native 
moral and devotional faculties, and their sufficiency, 
in connection with the normal aid of the Infinite 
Spirit, to account for the Bible and all holy Scrip- 
tures, for Jesus and all saints, prophets, and sons of 
God. 



NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL J 7 

For man, the head and sum of this creation, pos- 
sesses not only the material organization, the chem- 
ical and vital properties of the lower orders of crea- 
tion, in more subtle and fine degree, and the animal 
senses and the animal soul of the brute races, in- 
cluding that faculty of understanding, reasoning, 
memory, and instinctive affection which these races 
manifest in the conduct of a life immersed in the 
world of outward Nature ; but he has another order 
of faculties, an added sphere of perceptions and 
powers, — the spiritual, connecting him with the 
world of spirit. This is the sphere of universal ideas, 
of absolute truths, of eternal principles, of sacred 
sentiments. 

Here, in man's spiritual nature, is the faculty of 
Reason, which not by the processes of sensible ob- 
servations, or the logical inference of the practical 
understanding, but by inward, direct perception, 
has cognizance of these ideas, truths, and principles ; 
has the conception of Unity, Law, Cause ; of Infinite 
and Perfect. 

Here, in man's spiritual nature, the Conscience 
or moral sense has the conception of an absolute 
Right and its obligations ; something quite beyond 
the calculated prudence and utilities of the under- 
standing. 

Here, the Spiritual Affections are kindled to the 
love of, the yearning for, the devotion to, the per- 
fect good ; a love which, when directed toward hu- 
man objects, transforms the mere instinctive bodily 
love, which seeks only for their outward comfort, 
into a passion for spiritual qualities, that seeks their 
noblest good. 



yS NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 

Here are the energies of the spiritual Will ; that 
power of faith which, in confident surrender and 
obedience, lives from these ideas and sentiments, 
makes them vital principles of conduct ; with them 
overcomes the world, conquers the senses, overrules 
the estimates of the practical understanding, dis- 
places its expediencies, prudencies, and policies, 
accomplishes the things that the outward man de- 
clares imprudent, impolitic, and impossible. 

Here, Imagination transfigures nature with an 
ideal beauty, or builds her new heaven and new 
earth of things beyond experience and " not seen as 
yet." 

Here, Wonder explores that Mystery of the Invis- 
ible which to the senses and the understanding is a 
blank abyss, or a dead wall ; but to the spirit is as 
the transparent darkness of midnight skies, under 
which she stands not fearful, but sublimely uplifted. 

Here, Reverence, in rapt and exalted humility, 
enters the holy of holies, bends, and adores. 

Here spirit meets Spirit ; God is named, is known, 
is received, is obeyed ; an inspiring life, an indwell- 
ing law. 

Here man knows himself the son of God, by the 
spirit of the Father which dwelleth in him. Not 
mine nor Thine ; all Thine is mine ; and mine Thine. 
I in Thee, Thou in me. The Father in him speak- 
ing the word, doing the work. He and the Father 
one. 

For this spiritual nature in man is the true son of 
God; "born not of corruptible seed, but of incor- 
ruptible ; not of blood, or the will of the flesh, but 
of God ; " made in his image, capable of receiving 



NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 79 

of his fullness ; Immanuel, God with us. It is the 
manifestation of God to man ; for the human spirit 
is the only form in which we can see what God is. 
It is the word of God to man, for in it his truth 
speaks, his will works, the perpetual prophecy and 
revelation. God hath committed all judgment to it, 
for in it the conscience proclaims his moral law, 
and stands forever accusing or excusing. And as 
it is Judge, so is it Redeemer, through the Divine 
powers and life which are communicated through 
it, consecrating the outward. It is the Reconciler 
and Mediator between God and man, for in it are 
God and man united in one ; since in the highest 
moments and action of the spirit it is impossible to 
separate between the Divine and the human. 

Is the dream too bold ? Is the claim too presump- 
tuous ? Nay, we will not refuse our birthright. 
Rather with humble but joyful confidence we will 
take up the old words, " Behold what love the Fa- 
ther hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called 
the children of God." " Sons of God, and if sons, 
then heirs, joint heirs with Christ." "For as many 
as are led by the Spirit of God, the same are sons of 
God." " That ye may be filled with all the fullness 
of God." " One God and Father of all, above all, 
through all, in you all" For " if we love one another, 
God dwelleth in us." Or we may remember still other 
words : "lam the light of the world." " Ye are the 
light of the world." "The works that I do, ye shall 
do also, and greater, because I go to the Father." 
"My Father and your Father, my God and your 
God." " And when the Comforter, which is the 
Spirit of Truth, shall come, he shall lead you into all 
truth." 



80 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 

This great truth of the sonship of the spirit in 
man has been shadowed forth and kept alive by the 
dogma which asserts it of one man. But as that 
dogma virtually denies it of all others, even as a 
possibility ; as it teaches a remote and alienated 
God, and a human nature fallen and utterly disa- 
bled ; as it virtually denies the humanity of Jesus, 
by making him the absolute God ; as even in the 
churches which teach the Fatherhood of God and 
the purity and dignity of human nature, Jesus is 
still set apart from humanity as official and miracu- 
lous Mediator, Lord, and King, and made a demi- 
god, a mythological personage, neither God nor 
man, — it is not too much to say that the prevalent 
doctrine of " Christ," whether in the Orthodox or 
the Liberal churches, has become a hindrance rather 
than a help to men's spiritual growth. 

Rightly interpreted, indeed, what is that life of 
Jesus but an assertion of the spiritual possibilities 
of man, and of God's intimate and indwelling pres- 
ence in the spirit of man ? What was his heart's 
desire but to bring men to the Father, not to stand 
forever between them and Him ? 

And yet of that life we cannot venture longer to 
speak without a reservation. For who can know 
certainly what that life was ? We have a record ; 
but who can know how nearly it corresponds to the 
deed actually done, to the words actually spoken ? 
The life is long since ended ; the witnesses dead ; 
the documents are not authenticated. No free and 
competent critic accepts them as fully historical. 
To destroy that claim was easy. But out of the 
fragments, who is competent to reconstruct the 



NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 8 1 

reality ? What are all these recent attempts but 
proofs that such historical reconstruction is no 
longer possible ? Each selects, arranges, interprets, 
quite arbitrarily, according to his individual ideal. 
Thus we get the life of Jesus at third hand. Beau- 
tiful, noble, sacred, vividly human. But the child's 
question recurs, — Is it true? One thing is plain, 
that it can no longer be personal authority to us in 
belief or conduct. It is always easier to know 
whether a thing be right, or a doctrine true, than to 
know whether Jesus did or spoke it. What then ? 
Another superstition gone, sacred and precious as 
was the superstition of the Deity of Jesus. And 
tender hearts are pained, as they were pained when 
that was denied ; and timid ones tremble as they 
did then, lest Christianity and religion were under- 
mined. Another idol shattered — that the true God 
may be revealed. And while men cry, " Ye have 
taken away my Lord," a voice answers, " It is ex- 
pedient for you that I go away, else will not the 
Spirit come to you." Another superstition gone, 
another idol shattered. And what remains ? An 
ideal of human excellence and sanctity ; words of 
moral and spiritual truth, which our highest nature 
recognizes. And while these remain so recognized, 
they remain to judge us and to redeem us. God 
and the human soul remain. Is that so little ? Is 
it not all? God, the Spirit, unspeakably near to 
us, " nearer to us than our own bodies are." Man, 
a spirit, capable of knowing, loving, receiving Him. 
Are we lost because we are left alone with our 
Father? 

His children we are, not by adoption, but by birth. 



82 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 

For, as I said, this spiritual being, and son of God, 
is by birth in every man as a germ, as a latency, as 
a capacity. Every man becomes a conscious son of 
God, in proportion as he consciously lives in and 
from his highest nature. 

What it is we all know in part. Not one of us 
but has had the experience that has revealed it to 
us, if we knew how to name it, — this life of God 
in the soul, this birth of the son of God in the flesh. 

Whenever, in answer to prayer, some great 
strength and peace have filled our hearts, which 
nothing outward could explain or justify ; some 
great tranquillity in the midst of anguish, some great 
energy in difficulty, some great gladness in sorrow, 
some great light in darkness ; coming to us, we 
knew not how, but only knew that it came, and felt 
it to be from above ourselves, — then God came to 
us ; the experience was an experience of spiritual, 
of eternal life. It was an inspiration and a revela- 
tion. 

When, in answer to noble right-doing, there has 
been given to our conscience an energy of righteous 
purpose, the invigoration of a vital principle of jus- 
tice, — then God has come to us, and the experience 
was an experience of spiritual, eternal life ; it was 
an inspiration and a revelation. 

When, in answer to our earnest seeking to know 
the truth, that we might do the will of God, there 
has been given to our reason the clear vision and 
strong conviction of some truth which we felt must 
be forever true, — then God has come to us ; the 
experience was an experience of spiritual, of eternal 
life ; it was an inspiration and a revelation. 



NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 83 

In saying that inspiration is open to all, I do not 
mean to say that every man's every notion, opinion, 
whim, fancy, is a revelation from God. But I say 
that his clear convictions of truth, his earnest per- 
suasions of right, his profound and exalted feelings 
of inward power, peace, and joy, — that these are 
revelations of God to him ; and that he is bound to 
receive and obey them as such. I do not say that a 
man will receive inspiration from God by passively 
surrendering himself to be possessed by whatever 
may enter his vacated mind and will ; but I say that 
the energetic exercise of our highest faculties will 
bring us to the cooperating, quickening, illuminating 
presence of the Divine Spirit. 

I do not say the revelations thus made are infal- 
lible ; but I say they are authoritative for the indi- 
vidual. 

Infallibility is not for man ; but authority is for 
him, and firm conviction, entire faith, and the grow- 
ing approximation to the absolute truth. 

I must state, further, my conviction that no other 
revelation than this is possible to man. No inspired 
prophet or teacher can make a revelation to us, ex- 
cept as his words awaken our reason to have direct 
perception of the truth which was in his ; awaken 
our conscience to have a direct sense of the obliga- 
tion of the law which he proclaims. Nothing is 
truth to man, no matter by what divine voice it be 
spoken in his ear, except it become such a personal 
perception and conviction. Till then it is but tradi- 
tion and memory ; like talk of color to a blind man, 
only words ; a lesson learned by rote, an outward 
rule and regulation, possibly, but not a vital redeem- 



84 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 

ing principle, not the truth which makes us free. 
And only because the germs of all truth lie in the 
spiritual nature of every man, as child of God, can 
any of God's messengers reveal his truth, his will. 
As God has sowed the earth broadcast with germs 
of vegetable life, so He has sowed the world of souls 
broadcast with germs of truth. 

The starting into life of such a germ is the re- 
sponse of the soul to an inspired utterance, and is to 
that soul the authentication of the inspiration ; the 
witness of the Spirit which we have in ourselves. 

I know how much is made of the external proof 
of truths by means of miracles, even to declaring 
them to be the only possible way of authenticating 
a revelation. Against this time-honored statement 
the spiritual nature of men protests, claiming that it 
is its function to perceive truth, as it is that of the 
eye to see colors. 

This sphere of man's spiritual nature, as it is the 
sphere of spiritual experience, is also necessarily that 
of spiritual science or Theology. The central idea 
of Theology, the being of God, is possible only to it. 
The scientific observer of the outward world, using 
his senses and his practical understanding, which are 
the appropriate organs of his science, can find no 
God in Nature. The Positivist is right in saying 
that he discovers in the outward universe no Infi- 
nite, no Spirit ; no Law or Cause, even ; but only 
phenomena and an invariable sequence. All those 
ideas come from another source. But the Positivist 
is not right in saying that they are pure hypotheses, 
and have no reality corresponding to them. Obser- 
vation and reasoning will not find God ; but the 



NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 85 

spiritual nature of man declares him. And the man 
who has found God in his own quickened spirit may 
afterwards go into nature and trace everywhere rev- 
erently his methods of working in that outer sphere. 

And as the study of this inner life is Theology, 
so the life itself, the life of God in the human spirit, 
is Religion. And when I say the life of God in the 
spirit of man, I mean no figure of speech whatever. 
I use the words in their directest sense. When 
we exercise our bodies in Nature, we all know what 
invisible forces, chemical and vital, of light, of elec- 
tricity, and the like, flow into us, working in blood 
and nerve and tissue, to heal and invigorate, becom- 
ing actually incorporated with our frames, living and 
working in and through them. Just so truly, when- 
ever we exercise our spiritual faculties, do spiritual 
forces from beyond us enter, quicken, invigorate, 
become incorporated with our spirits. So God lives 
in, works through us. If a man opens his eyes, the 
light comes in ; if he expands his lungs, the air flows 
in. We cannot turn our reason toward Truth, or our 
conscience toward Right, or our affection toward 
Good, or our will toward the doing of either, but 
that the omnipresent spirit of Truth, of Righteous- 
ness, of Love, of Power, — and that is God, — flows 
into them. 

They become channels of his energy, and are rein- 
forced from beyond themselves. It is ourselves, but 
something more than ourselves. Perfectly natural, 
already familiar is this. Only we want to give it the 
right name. Religious men in all ages have rightly 
named it. Those who read their words fancy it was 
something peculiar to them, something miraculous 



86 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL 

perhaps, not knowing that they themselves have had 
the same experience. " The Father who dwelleth 
in me, doeth the works." " If we love one another, 
God dwelleth in us." 

I spoke of this spiritual nature as an original capa- 
city. We come inlo full possession of our spiritual 
powers, as of our bodily powers, by exercise. And 
the exercise of unused limbs may be painful and 
must cost effort and sacrifice of momentary ease. 
Not by influence alone, but by effort and sacrifice, 
is the spiritual life developed within us. By a res- 
olute choice of the higher, and a resolute putting 
aside of the lower, whenever they conflict ; by a de- 
votion of the outward and material to the inward 
and invisible ; by giving up a bodily advantage to 
secure a spiritual integrity by living for ideas and 
principles ; by making sacrifice of money, position, 
fashion, popularity, external power, to truth and 
duty, — these are the daily appointed ways of gain- 
ing the higher life. Whatever loosens the power 
of outward things over us, and our dependence on 
them ; whatever lifts us to a nobler thought and 
action, — these we are to welcome, as too often we 
shun them. For by them we enter into Life. 

We are not called upon to leave life, but to con- 
secrate and ennoble life. We are to infuse, from 
spiritual sources, a spiritual element into its ordi- 
nary details, by meeting and performing them under 
the inspiration of conscientious faithfulness, of cheer- 
ful self-denial, of generous thoughtfulness of other's 
good. And so we are to convert them all into chan- 
nels of divine ideas and of God's good-will to men. 

March, 1867. From The Radical. 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 

The first doctrine of Natural Religion is that 
religion is natural to man. 

The first doctrine of Spiritual Religion is that man 
is a spiritual being. 

These are the root-ideas, the radical doctrines of 
that natural-spiritual religion of which we are saying 
something to you here on these Sunday evenings. 

We shall find, I think, the root of any system of 
theology in its doctrine of man. It might seem as if 
its doctrine of God would be the basis. But it is not 
really so, I believe, in our experience, though it may 
be in our systems. Rather, a man's views of God 
will be found, if we look closely, to grow out of his 
view of man. The conception of God is the ideal of 
human qualities conceived of as superhuman, infinite, 
perfect. 

What the common doctrine of man is you all well 
know. " Poor fallen human nature ! " That is the 
phrase. Utterly disabled, and of itself incapable of 
any good, and wholly inclined to evil — you know 
what the creeds say. An ancient legend, wholly 
unauthenticated, is declared to be divinely dictated 
history. The first created man and woman, created 
pure and upright, created in the image of God, cre- 
ated all that any man or woman can ever, by the 
grace of God and the costly sacrifice of God become, 
almost as soon as created, sin utterly and irremedi- 



88 SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 

ably ; sin, not in the indulgence of any base pas- 
sion, but simply in the desire for knowledge ; sin, 
not in the commission of anything in itself wrong, 
but by an act in itself indifferent, only forbidden by 
the arbitrary will of God. In a moment their purity, 
their uprightness are utterly lost, their immortality 
effaced, their nature and destiny changed. That is 
not the worst of it. The whole race falls in their 
fall ; the whole race is utterly lost ; the whole race 
becomes mortal ; human nature is changed. Hence- 
forth and forever, by the sin of that one man and 
woman, every man and woman that is born into the 
world is born depraved, tainted, corrupt, alienated 
from God, unable of themselves to know and love 
Him, subject to his wrath, and doomed to eternal 
torments. After a time, by a miraculous flood, God 
sweeps the earth clean of this evil brood. But it is 
in vain, for He saves one family ; and that is enough 
to transmit the fatal leprosy. The deadly taint is 
passed down ; spreads and grows with the growing 
race. At last, after many centuries, God's compas- 
sion is moved to send a Saviour. He himself, or a 
portion of Him, descends to earth, is incarnated in a 
Hebrew child, dies a violent death to save the world. 
But it is again in vain. Only a few of earth's multi- 
tudes even hear of these conditions of safety and 
redemption ; of those who hear, but few accept. 
And even this does not avail. Individuals are saved, 
but human nature is not redeemed. Even the 
redeemed individuals transmit the diseased nature, 
and with that every child in Christendom is born, as 
well as in heathendom. The best and the worst are 
alike under this curse. All alike, by virtue of their 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 89 

human nature, disabled, ruined, lost ! Their highest 
virtues, most noble and generous sentiments, justest 
deeds, kindest affections, — all tainted, all incapable 
of pleasing God, as well as their basest passions ! 
Their righteousness is but filtjiy rags. Human na- 
ture, as human, is evil. The human mind, as human, 
has no knowledge of God. The human heart, as hu- 
man, is hostile to Him. The human will, as human, 
is disobedient to his law. " One thing is plain," 
said an intelligent, amiable, and educated clergyman 
to me not long since, "that the first voluntary moral 
act of a child will certainly be evil." 

I have tried to state fairly this doctrine, the 
received doctrine in the Christian church ; taught as 
Religion ; the assent to it made the very first step 
in the religious life. " I can only feel remorse for 
the sins I have knowingly committed," wrote Dr. 
Beecher's son to him. But his father wrote him back 
that that was not enough, and pleaded earnestly with 
him to feel the sinfulness of his nature, and its lost 
state without a Redeemer. You know the attempt 
of another son of his to justify the doctrine by a 
hypothesis which honors his heart, but not his rea- 
son. I have heard still another son publicly throw 
the whole doctrine overboard. 

What I have to say of this doctrine now is simply 
that it is not true. As from some distressing and 
hideous nightmare, a man has but to shake himself 
or be shaken awake, has but to open his eyes, and 
the frightful phantom is no more. Man is 7/0/ fallen. 
The race is not in ruins ; human nature is not de- 
praved, either totally or substantially. It has as 
much original good in it as it has of " original sin." 



go SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 

No need of spending time in explaining or justify- 
ing the doctrine, its how or its why. The question 
is of the fact. Does any man in his right mind be- 
lieve that he has no good in him, that his honest 
endeavors to do right ^.re wicked in the sight of God ? 
Did any man ever see a totally depraved man ? Or 
if he did, did he take him as a fair specimen of his 
neighbors ? Did he not call him a monster and not 
a true man ? The doctrine wants common sense. 

The only element of truth I can find in the popu- 
lar doctrine of original and inherited sin is the fact 
of the transmission of physical qualities and moral 
tendencies from parent to child. In this way, no 
doubt, evil tendencies — tendencies to excess and 
perversion, that is, — are inherited and born in many 
a child. So a sin perpetuates itself, and the sins 
of the father are visited on the children. This is a 
truth of most serious significance, and makes the 
parent's responsibility for the child's character begin 
before its birth. But the transmission of evil ten- 
dencies is but half the truth. By the same law, 
good is equally transmitted ; a fact full of encour- 
agement and hope ; one which the common doctrine 
entirely overlooks. And the taint never reaches to 
human nature, but only to individual character. No 
human capacity is destroyed by it ; only the develop- 
ment of capacity made more difficult. 

I say, then, man is not fallen. There is no histor- 
ical ground for the fact, no need of the theory. He 
is imperfect. He does not need to be restored, but 
perfected. There is evil enough in the world ; sin 
enough. But there was never a time, when there 
was less. And never a time, I believe, when there 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 9 1 

was so much good in the world as now. In place of 
the fiction of a Fall of Man, let us declare the truth 
of the Rise of Man. 

A germ with an impulse of growth and law of 
development, that is what science finds universally 
in physical nature. Germs of reason, conscience, 
spiritual faculty, with an upward tendency, an im- 
pulse of growth, a law of progressive development, 
are what we shall find in human nature. From 
lower to higher, human thought, feeling, institutions, 
civilization have from the first been advancing ; not 
uninterruptedly, not rapidly, not always visibly ; but 
surely. From imperfection toward perfection is the 
march. We must take large periods to see it, some- 
times. The outward world is not in ruins, but in 
building. And human nature is not in ruins, but in 
growth. 

The original constitution of man contains the ele- 
ments of all the good that is in the world ; of all the 
truth, the justice, the love, the holiness, of all the 
religion, in a word. These are neither the remains 
of a primeval holiness destroyed, nor the fragments 
of an original revelation lost, nor the product of a 
power specially interpolated. Whatever a man may 
become by the grace of God, that he has the native 
capacity of becoming. Human nature is not under 
a curse, but under a blessing, — a blessing of native 
capacity and inborn law of growth. 

Thus our theology bases itself upon faith in man. 
It declares his native faculties to be adequate, good, 
and trustworthy. It declares the original idea and 
law of human nature to be perfect. That idea the 
race has never lost, but is slowly realizing and carry- 



0,2 SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 

ing out. And a man is perfect in proportion as he 
carries out the original idea of his nature, and is 
obedient to the law of his being. There is no fac- 
ulty, or propensity, or instinct, or passion in human 
nature that is evil in itself. Every one is good in 
itself, intended for a good purpose, and productive 
of good as it is legitimately exercised. What we 
call evil passions are only good passions carried to 
excess, or misdirected or unbalanced. Anger, for 
instance, in its evil form, is but the excess of an in- 
stinct needed for self-protection, or for the defense 
of the right, and has its pure form in high moral 
indignation against wrong, a tremendous motive 
power toward the removal of evil. The lust which 
fills our communities with degradation, disease, and 
misery is but the excess or misuse of an instinct 
in itself innocent, and in its right use productive of 
the highest human good, in the continuance of the 
race and the sacred joys of the family. Education, 
then, not eradication, is the need of human nature. 
Education ; including exercise, culture, enlighten- 
ment, inspiration, control. 

I never heard that anybody ever doubted the ade- 
quacy, the trustworthiness, of the human senses, and 
those faculties which connect us with the outer 
world. Not but what our senses sometimes deceive 
us ; but on the whole, rightly and fairly used, every- 
body believes they will not mislead, and they do not. 
Nor does the existence of blind men, or deaf and 
dumb men, lead anybody to doubt that sight and 
speech and hearing are natural to man. So every- 
body belives in the trustworthiness of his practical 
understanding ; of his reasoning power, of his com- 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 93 

mon sense ; of the faculties by which he carries on 
his business, and gets his living, and sees the force 
of an argument, the reasonableness of a course in 
affairs. Nor does any existing amount of mistakes, 
of bad logic, or of contradictory conclusions lead 
any one to doubt that a practical reasoning faculty 
belongs to the constitution of human nature ; may, 
if fairly used, be safely trusted ; and will prove on 
the whole sufficient for its ends. And the more 
thoroughly it is educated, the more sufficient. With- 
out such conviction, trust, faith, we could not move 
a step in the affairs of outward life. 

Just in the same way, the man of natural science 
puts confidence in the trustworthiness of his observ- 
ing faculties, in his senses and perceptions. His 
scientific knowledge could not move a step, could 
not even exist without it. All his knowledge rests 
upon that postulate that the senses and mental fac- 
ulties connected with them are trustworthy. He 
cannot prove it. He takes it for granted, for he is 
so made that he must. Are there no mistakes in 
scientific inquiry ? Are observers perfectly agreed ? 
Are no reports inaccurate, no theories found unten- 
able ? Nevertheless, the man of science knows that 
he may trust the scientific faculties, and that, fairly 
used, they will in the end lead to the sufficiently 
sure knowledge of scientific fact. 

It is only when we leave the sphere of the senses, 
and the practical understanding which conducts sci- 
entific observation and the practical affairs of life, 
that men begin to doubt the trustworthiness of their 
natures. 

But as soon as they come to the higher part of 



94 SOME RADICAL- DOCTRINES 

man's nature they do doubt ; yes, and deny. For 
his outward life, it is agreed, man is well provided 
with faculties perfectly fitted for their end. But for 
his higher life ; for what is of infinitely more im- 
portance to his present welfare, to his lasting good, 
to his true happiness, — here it is believed God has 
left him unprovided. It is admitted to be of vital im- 
portance that a man should know what is just and 
right, and everlastingly true and beautiful and good ; 
that he should know God, and his infinite power, 
and his perfect law, and his tender Fatherhood ; 
that he should know his own immortality and in- 
finite destinies. And yet for this all-essential know- 
ledge, man's nature, it is taught, is unprovided with 
organs to perceive, with faculties to know ; or those 
that he has are so imperfectly fitted for their end 
that of themselves they will either lead him directly 
astray, or leave him to wander in doubt and uncer- 
tainty. In a word, it is commonly taught that man 
has in his native constitution no trustworthy spirit- 
ual faculties. He has no moral sense and spiritual 
reason which can serve in his deepest needs, as his 
eyes, and his hands, and his practical sense serve 
him in his outward life. 

Now, that this doctrine should be held by those 
who believe in total depravity, or original sin, is nat- 
ural and consistent. Of course, a fallen nature can- 
not be trusted to lead aright, and must guide men 
straight to the pit. If men in that case are to know 
the divine law of righteousness, prophets miracu- 
lously inspired must be sent to reveal it. If they are 
to see God, He must himself come down to earth 
and take form before them. If they are to know his 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 95 

will, it must be written in a book by his dictation. 
I do not dwell upon the frightful disparity between 
the disease and the remedy, the dreadful insuffi- 
ciency of the supplement. A whole race in ruins 
and hopelessly lost, and a few prophets sent to one 
small nation ; a Redeemer manifested for three short 
years in one small corner of the globe. Whole na- 
tions and whole generations of men, who never hear 
of either ; and, at last, one book, sole repository of 
God's truth, and will, and a few hundred mission- 
aries to convey it to earth's millions ! 

Has the Father and Saviour of all treated men in 
that way ? 

But what shall I say of those whose brighter and 
truer theology rejects this superstition of total de- 
pravity and original sin ? The theology which pro- 
claims the dignity and purity of human nature still 
continues to deny the adequacy and trustworthiness 
of the moral and spiritual faculties in human nature. 
Or it continues to hold doctrines so inconsistent with 
this as to amount to a denial. Ah ! I fear that in 
pulling up and throwing away the old doctrine some 
of the roots have been left. The rejection of man's 
disability has not been radical enough, nor the asser- 
tion of man's dignity and grandeur radical enough. 
Unitarians and Universalists continue to supplement 
his disability with a superhuman Bible, a superhu- 
man " Christ." They still speak as if man, left to 
himself, could have no knowledge of God except the 
faint notion he could derive from the outward world. 
They still declare that man has no certainty of im- 
mortality except for the resurrection of Jesus ; still 
assert that, outside of Christianity, men have had no 



g6 SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 

faith in a future life, only a " guess " at it. One, 
even, in declaring that he could not comprehend 
how this could continue to be asserted in face of the 
plainest historic facts, must add, " Yet clear as is 
the declaration of natural religion upon this truth of 
immortality, and undoubting as is my conviction in 
my best moments, I am not ashamed to confess that 
when I stand beside the empty tomb of Jesus of 
Nazareth, and hear the voice, ' He is not here, he is 
risen,' I feel an assurance that natural religion could 
never give." But has he ever stood there, or ever 
heard that angel ? Was he not confounding a fancy 
with a fact ? Must not, in the nature of things, the 
testimony of a miracle, granting it to have happened, 
be confined to those who actually witnessed it ? " 

And so the Bible continues to be spoken of as the 
record of a supernatural revelation, its texts quoted 
as the unanswerable and final authority in moral 
and spiritual truth. The inspiration of the prophets 
of Palestine was miraculous, or virtually so ; their 
names cannot be mentioned in equal connection 
with Confucius, Zoroaster, Plato, without a shock to 
" Liberal " sensibilities as well as " Orthodox." God 
is believed to have been with them as He is not with 
men now, and the claim to present inspiration, iden- 
tical in kind with theirs, is counted as visionary and 
presumptuous. 

" When mankind was a child, God led him by the 
hand ; when he was a youth, God walked by his 
side ; but when he had become a man, God gave 
him his book, and retired behind the veil of his 
works." Men listen to such words as these without 
feeling how really irreligious they are. 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 97 

So, Jesus, as a superhuman, miraculous Christ, is 
set forth as the only true access that man has to 
God ; a prayer is thought defective that is not 
offered through him, or in his name, or for his sake; 
a sermon is unsatisfying that does not enforce its 
truths by his word or example. He alone is our 
Saviour, our Redeemer, Mediator, Way to God. No 
man can come to God except through him. 

"But," some one asks, — " But did not Jesus him- 
self say that?" What he is recorded to have said 
is, " No man cometh to the Father but by me," not 
" no man can come, or ever did come, or ever shall 
come, but by me." He may have meant that there, 
in Judea, when he spoke, he was the only teacher 
who could really bring men to the Father. I cannot 
be sure of what he meant. Or sure of what he said. 
But of this I am sure : that when I go directly to 
my Father in prayer, I find Him near to my soul, 
with no one between me and Him. 

If we are to have a true scientific theology, we 
must use the scientific method. First, free our- 
selves from prepossessions, then try to find and 
state the facts just as they are. 

Now what is the fact about human nature ? 
What do individual experience and historical obser- 
vation teach us ? This : — 

That man has in his original constitution certain 
spiritual faculties, which are as much a part of his 
nature as his bodily faculties, or his practical under- 
standing. These spiritual faculties are as well fitted 
to their end, are as adequate to their purpose, as the 
senses or the understanding to theirs. They are as 
trustworthy in their sphere. And their sphere is 



98 SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 

the perception of ideas, of absolute truths, of eternal 
principles, of spiritual realities, of things invisible, 
everlasting, divine. These faculties not only belong 
to human nature ; they are its special characteris- 
tic ; they are the human ; they are the man. In his 
bodily organization man belongs to the animals, is 
but the most highly organized of them. I believe 
the anatomist cannot find anything in his body 
which does not exist among the brutes. Nor is 
man differenced from them by the possession of 
the practical understanding or animal mind, those 
mental faculties which are occupied with the care 
of the body. For we have given up the idea — have 
we not ? — that brutes have only physical sensibility 
and instincts. We see in them the manifestations 
of reasoning and comparison, and adapting of means 
to ends, and memory, and hope, and affection ; all, 
however, relating to the body. But having these 
faculties in common with them, man has others by 
which he transcends them ; a higher range of powers 
into which they do not enter. For we have no indi- 
cation in them of any perception of ideas, of univer- 
sal truths, of absolute principles, of the infinite, the 
perfect, the holy. These are the grander prerog- 
atives of man. These are the human. These first 
make their appearance in him. By these man is 
allied to beings above him, not to those below him. 
By these he is a spiritual being and son of God. 

Intuitive reason, the moral sense, ideality, love 
and reverence for the invisible, faith, — these are 
the spiritual faculties in man. His outward life 
does not require them, and has no adequate use for 
them. They often hamper and embarrass it, de- 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 99 

mand sometimes its sacrifice. They point to and 
give him assurance of an invisible, an immortal life ; 
a life over which the accidents of time and death 
have no* power ; a life in divine ideas, in eternal real- 
ities, in noble endeavors, in self-sacrificing generos- 
ities, in heroisms and devotions, and sacred aspira- 
tions. This higher life the senses cannot compass, 
nor the practical understanding justify ; but it glo- 
rifies and ennobles and hallows the outward life by 
infusing into a secret divine principle, and a sacred 
sense of God's presence and purpose and law. I 
think the Positivist is right, and speaks the last 
word of physical science in this direction, when he 
says that he finds no God in nature, — not even the 
Great Cause of all things, — but only phenomena 
and their orderly succession. These are all that the 
faculties which the scientist uses are fitted to dis- 
cover. Observation and reasoning will not discover 
or prove Him. Only the spiritual nature of man 
declares Him. The physical scientist may also be 
a religious, a spiritually minded man ; then indeed 
he will discern everywhere in outward nature the 
secret Presence, the one Force, the Almighty ; yes, 
and the All-Loving and the All-Fair. Then he will 
reverently trace the working of the Divine Law, the 
methods of God's ways in the visible universe. But 
unless he has found God in his spirit and by his 
spirit, he will never find Him by searching nature. 
There is no logical induction from the visible to the 
moral. We know thought and will, we know justice 
and benevolence, only by having experienced them 
in ourselves. And if in the contemplation of nature 
or the study of its wonders, the sense of God springs 



100 SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 

up powerfully within us, it is not that nature gives 
the idea, but only that it awakens a thought or feel- 
ing that lay germinal within us. Nature may be the 
occasion, but it is not the origin, of religious ideas. 

And always a moral manifestation is a higher 
manifestation of God than any physical phenome- 
non can be. A human deed of moral heroism, of 
self-devoted love, of sacred enthusiasm, is a perfecter 
revelation of God than the magnificent spaces of 
astronomy, or the vast eras of geology, or the won- 
ders of microscopic beauty and skill. 

The great ideas which his spiritual nature reveals 
to man are the ideas of God, of duty, of unselfish 
love, of immortality. And all these are spiritually 
discerned. The faculties which know them are, if 
fairly exercised, perfectly adequate to acquire that 
knowledge and are perfectly trustworthy. To doubt 
that is the true unbelief. To hold that God has 
given us senses and understanding, and that these 
are adequate to their work and our needs ; and to 
doubt that He has given us moral and spiritual fac- 
ulties, or that these are adequate to their work and 
to our infinitely higher needs, and must be supple- 
mented by the imperfect and uncertain intervention 
of miracle, — this is nigh to Atheism. 

In the full conception of God culminates all the 
revelation of the spiritual faculties in their highest 
exercise. 

The reason gives the idea of the infinite Wisdom, 
the eternal Truth. The moral sense gives the idea 
of perfect Justice ; the spiritual affection gives the 
idea of love ; the spiritual will gives the idea of infi- 
nite Power ; the spiritual imagination gives the idea 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 101 

of infinite Beauty. Beauty I say. This is not often 
spoken of as a divine attribute. But if beauty be 
not in God, how can it be in nature, how can it be 
in the human soul ? It cannot exist there any more 
than truth, power, love, justice, without pointing to 
its existence, in perfect degree, in Him from whom 
comes the creation and the spirit of man. Thus it 
is that the spirit in man knows and reveals the 
Spirit above man. 

If now, any one ask, — and the question may hon- 
estly be asked, — granting that these ideas be in 
man, how do we know that there is any reality be- 
yond man corresponding to them ? I can only say 
that a necessity of man's nature compels him to 
refer these ideas to a reality beyond himself as their 
ground and origin. In regard to the outward world, 
we have cognizance of only sensations and percep- 
tions in ourselves ; but we are so made that we 
cannot help referring them to an existence out of 
ourselves, and by a necessity of our constitution we 
believe, though we cannot prove, that an outward 
world does exist, corresponding to the idea we have 
of it in ourselves. In both cases it comes back to 
the trustworthiness of our nature, and if we do not 
believe in that, we cannot believe in anything, not 
even in our unbelief. 

Again, does any ask, How, if these moral and 
religious faculties be inherent in man, can you ex- 
plain that all men are not morally virtuous, that all 
men are not religiously devout ? the answer is, of 
course, that a faculty may exist in man and yet not 
be used ; that capacities which men alike possess 
are in different degrees developed. And the like 



102 SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 

answer must be given to the objection derived from 
the diversities of religious belief and moral notions 
in different nations and ages ; beliefs often mon- 
strous, notions often gross. These are but the re- 
sult of different degrees of development. But the 
fact remains, even established by these anomalies, 
that everywhere and in all times man has had some 
idea of God and some idea of right and wrong ; and 
nothing can so simply and completely explain that 
as the existence in his native constitution of a spir- 
itual faculty, a capacity for knowing God and his 
law. 

The conceptions or forms which this idea will 
take depend upon the state of those who shape 
them. A rude, sensuous people, or man, will have 
rude and sensuous conceptions about God ; will take 
a stick or tree, a rudely cut stone, to represent Him. 
Another, more spiritual, will find in nature's grand- 
est object, the sun, his symbol. Another will seek 
in idealized human forms, carved in marble, the 
outward expression. And when men have come to 
conceive of God under human attributes, the more 
feebly spiritualized will take what is outermost in 
man and least worthy, and will figure God in human 
shape, with human organs and human passions on 
a majestic scale ; will believe Him to be angry, to 
be vindictive, to be appeasable by sacrifices, to be 
changeable, repenting of what He has done ; to 
govern the world by edicts and interferences ; to 
come and to go, to be now present, now absent. 
This is the prevalent conception in Christendom. 

But the more spiritually minded a man becomes, 
the more he will drop one after another of these 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 103 

external conceptions, holding to them for a while, 
perhaps, as figures of speech, but freeing himself 
more and more from them, and framing his concep- 
tions more and more by what is spiritual in man, 
his images by what is invisible in nature. The more 
a man, by living spiritually, knows himself to be a 
spirit, the more clearly he knows that God is The 
Spirit. He no longer thinks of Him as an individ- 
ual being in any way apart from the universe. But 
as an all-pervading, an all-including, an all-quicken- 
ing Life ; a really omnipresent Thought, and Love, 
and Will ; not individual, yet personal, because 
thought and love and will are qualities of persons 
and not of things. He no longer thinks of God as 
having once made the world, and now superintend- 
ing it, and occasionally intervening by his messen- 
gers ; but as the informing and including Spirit 
which momently and forever puts forth the universe ; 
working in every atom, through every force, the one 
Force of which all natural forces are expressions. 
His laws are not written in statute books, but framed 
into the organization of things. His providence is 
not a special intervention, but a perpetual will to 
good, which makes that no real, lasting harm can 
come to any. His will is not a series of separate 
volitions, but a full, steady, all-moving, all-conquer- 
ing stream of energy, unwearied and unceasing. 
His love is not an individual affection selecting and 
especially directing itself upon individuals, but an 
atmosphere in which all are embosomed, and which 
our individual heart feels whenever we seek it. 
Thus is God inexpressibly near, for from spirit all 
barriers of space and time are removed. 



104 SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 

But, highest experience of all, there comes a time 
when man, in high spiritual mood, feels God — the 
Spirit — more than near. In some hour of high 
thought, when a great truth flashes upon his reason ; 
in some still hour of communion or agony of prayer, 
when a great peace fills his heart ; in some noble 
moment of self-sacrifice or right-doing, when duty 
has grown clear to his conscience ; when a quicken- 
ing energy has exalted his will and warmed his heart, 
— then he has felt the assurance, glad, overpowering, 
uplifting, unspeakably sweet and beautiful, that that 
which was moving within him, exalting, yet calming, 
was more than himself ; that the God whom he had 
reverenced with such awe has entered into his spirit 
an indwelling, inspiring presence. This love was 
God's love. This justice God's justice. This truth 
God's truth. This peace God's peace. 

One cannot speak many words of such experience. 
It is the experience of saintly men in all time. It is 
the experience of every soul in its saintly moments. 
Then we cry, " Hast Thou been always thus with 
me, and have I not known Thee ? " Then we learn 
that the Spirit that stirred us so powerfully in these 
rapt moments is every hour working in a thousand 
familiar ways around and within our souls, — as the 
electricity, which concentrates in the blinding glory 
of the storm, is all the time working, kindly and 
vivifying, about and within our bodies. 

Finally, does any one ask, If in ourselves we 
have the consciousness of God and of the divine 
law, what need of prophets, of bibles, of " Christ " ? 
What need, indeed ! That is not the question. The 
question is, Man being by nature religious, how could 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 



105 



there fail to be prophets, bibles, redeemers ? How 
could this nature fail to express itself in speech, in 
writing ? How could it fail to be in some men more 
intense, more earnest, more full, more vivid in its 
utterance, more profound and enduring in the im- 
pression it should leave behind in the world ? No 
need, indeed, of supplementary, special and miracu- 
lous intervention to do that which was already pro- 
vided for from the beginning. But much need that, 
in unbelieving ages, when men were absorbed in the 
outward, and skeptical of the inward life, prophets 
gifted with moral insight and spiritual life should 
seek to arouse and quicken their faith in God, duty, 
love, and immortality. The same need exists now, 
and the same supply exists to meet it ; for God and 
man are the same they ever were, and their relations 
the same. Great the need in all ages — and truly 
in this age — to break up men's petrified worship of 
the past which they glorify with a superstitious halo, 
building the sepulchres of its prophets and worship- 
ing its closed books, that they may excuse them- 
selves from the solemn duty of the present, and those 
sacrifices by which alone divine inspiration can be 
received. Great the need to declare to them the 
grandeur and sacredness of the present and its 
opportunities of inspiration. Great the need to 
recall them from idolatry of the dead to true rever- 
ence for the living, — above all for the living God. 
There is nothing in bibles, Persian, Hindoo, or He- 
brew, which human nature cannot explain. Their 
errors are certainly human ; the grand truths which 
irradiate them are equally human, and none the less 
divine for that. Redeemers, manifestations, incar- 



106 SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES 

nations of God, all nations and ages have needed 
and have had ; first living men ; then mytholo- 
gized into demi-gods, into gods. Not otherwise has 
it happened with him whom Christendom worships ; 
Jesus of Nazareth, to the Orthodox, a god ; to the 
Liberals, a mythologic demi-god ; to them who are 
spiritual, a brother man who needs no more than 
human nature and its native capacities to explain all 
he was and did. Human, — but remember all of 
divine that human means, since the human soul is by 
its nature open to the inspiration and indwelling of 
God. 

What Jesus was, and what he did, indeed, we can 
never exactly know. Thus much, at least, I think 
is proved by these many attempts to reconstruct his 
life on a historic basis, — that we no longer have 
the means of constructing it with any certainty. 
The great good they will do will be to accustom 
men to look upon him as perfectly human. So 
Jesus steps down from the pedestal upon which he 
has unwillingly stood, while priests waved their 
censers, and hid him in the sacred smoke. He 
walks among men, and they feel the warm, familiar 
clasp of his hand, and reverence him the more that 
they adore him the less. And he says to them : 
"Sons of God, cease these idolatrous praises of me ; 
there is none so good as you deem me, save one, 
that is God. Cease to say of me things which you 
do not know to be true, for simple truth is the high- 
est honor you can give me, and I am but a mortal 
man as yourselves. Know that your ideal of me is 
but the ideal of your own possibilities. Strive to 



SOME RADICAL DOCTRINES loy 

be true to those, and you shall find God as near to 
you as He was to me. Yea, the Father shall dwell 
in you, doing greater works than I have done, and 
shall never leave you alone, because you shall always 
do the things that please Him." 

The first doctrine of spiritual religion is that man 
is a spirit ; and the second is that God is the Spirit. 

And so are God and man at one. 

May, 1867. From The Radical. Originally read as a lecture at 
the Parker Fraternity Rooms, February 24, 1867. 






SERMONS 



THE WORD PREACHED 

The word preached. — Hebrews iv. 2. 

The institution of preaching, whatever may be 
said of its present want of power or of the inade- 
quacy of the results it produces, — and, doubtless, 
a good deal may be said with truth, — has not yet 
vacated its claim to exist. However poorly the pul- 
pit may do its work, it still has a work to do. It will 
not cease to have a work to do so long as the incom- 
plete and disordered condition of the world fills it 
with sin and sorrow, — so long as breaking hearts 
need consolation, and burdened spirits strength, 
and darkened minds light, and fallen souls redemp- 
tion. It will not cease to have a work to do so long 
as the pressure and fever of material activities is 
continually drawing men away from the recognition 
of their spiritual relations and needs ; so long as 
purely temporal interests and aims absorb the ear- 
nestness that should be devoted to the attainment of 
the eternal life within ; so long as merely external 
standards of action and success take the place of 
spiritual estimates ; so long as selfish maxims and 
practices are rife and current, deadening men's con- 
sciences to the duty owed to their neighbor. It has 
a work to do so long as luxury intoxicates and en- 
feebles, and sensuality maddens and destroys. It 
has a work to do so long as violence and revenge 



112 THE WORD PREACHED 

organized into national custom, and injustice and 
inhumanity legalized into cherished institutions, ren- 
der men callous to the eternal claims of the Christian 
law of love, — the divine and highest law of justice 
and mercy. It has a work to do so long as hells of 
vice and infamy yawn black and terrible in the 
midst of our fairest communities, unheeded by pre- 
occupied eyes. 

So long, in brief, as the Living God is unknown, 
or forgotten, or defied ; or believed to be afar off, or 
practically set afar off, so long the pulpit has a work 
to do. So long as the spirit of love and brotherhood 
which Jesus lived and died to teach is yet unlearned, 
and God's kingdom, for which he labored, not yet 
come, the Christian pulpit has a work to do, and 
need not abdicate its functions, and will not become 
obsolete. 

Therefore may we well build new pulpits and con- 
secrate new walls to echo with the sound of " the 
word preached." 

A strong, calm voice above the din of worldliness 
and strife, a clear, unfaltering tone amid the delud- 
ing voices of selfishness and sin, still let it to men 
and nations proclaim the Love of God and the Love 
of Man as the sum of the Law. Still let it send home 
its appeals to the conscience, speak its heavenly 
peace to the broken-hearted, its divine strength to the 
weary and heavy-laden, its faith to the despondent, 
its redemption to the sinful. Still let it show forth 
the true objects of life, the things that are worth 
living for ; still point out to men the evils that may 
justly provoke their indignation ; and the good works 
that should enlist their sympathy and their toil ; still 



THE WORD PREACHED 113 

strive to make the soul recipient of the life of God, 
and to bring on the coming of God's reign of truth, 
justice, and love, of harmony and joy in the world. 

One thing is certain, — that the pulpit cannot 
hope long to stand unless it has a work to do. It 
cannot hope long to stand among us by prescription, 
or any supposed divine appointment. It is already 
stripped of much of its peculiar privilege and pres- 
tige ; let them go ; I wish they were all gone. It 
must make good its right to be, by showing itself 
a reality ; then it cannot be shaken. It is better, 
infinitely better, that it, and the man in it, should 
stand on their own veritable worth and character ; 
be venerated for only what of genuine sanctity they 
have, and not upheld by prescription, custom, or 
complaisance. 

Alas for the pulpit that does not do its work, — 
that breaks no bread of life, but offers only husks. 
If the pulpit be occupied by a formalist, with his 
perfunctory routine of stereotyped commonplaces, 
unvivified by one gleam of personal experience, with 
its rites, " whose dry creaking formality no heart 
warms ; " if the church that should be filled with the 
presence of a living Christ be but his empty tomb, 
with no reminiscence of him but the cast-off linen 
clothes, we need write no scornful inscription above 
its doorway ; it is its own saddest epitaph. If it be 
invaded by the sectarian who shuts up the kingdom 
of heaven ; or the bigot who poisons the glad waters 
of life with his own uncharitableness ; if it lend it- 
self to the schemes and mould itself to the fashions 
of worldliness, preaching smooth things for true 
things ; if it descend to become the ally of wrong, 



I 14 THE WORD PREACHED 

and drug a nation's already torpid conscience with 
stronger opiates, — it deserves only contempt and 
neglect. 

It is not to be overlooked that the pulpit has of 
late years, and among ourselves, been assailed by a 
searching criticism. And the conscientious reformer 
has uttered his severe protest against its deadness 
and faithlessness, and shaking off the dust of his 
feet against it has gone out into the wilderness. 

It is charged, on the one hand, that the pulpit 
is the discourager and enemy of free thought ; that 
it discountenances free inquiry ; that, professing the 
doctrine of private judgment, it is opposed to its 
free exercise ; that it anchors itself to obsolete the- 
ologies ; refuses new light ; is suspicious of new 
doctrine ; and holding up its infallible Church, or 
infallible Creed, or infallible Bible, deters any who 
would question them by the cry of infidel and here- 
tic. Or, again, that it has been timid and feared to 
speak out its belief or its doubts. 

On the other hand, it is charged with being faith- 
less to humanity ; that like the Pharisees of old it 
has tithed mint, anise, and cumin, and omitted 
justice and mercy ; has devoured widows' houses, 
and for a pretense made long prayers ; that it has 
been silent upon great wrongs, afraid or unwilling 
to speak plainly of popular sins ; that it has been the 
defender and bulwark of injustice and oppression; 
at least their abetter by timid acquiescence of faint, 
undecisive speech. 

The force of such charges can only lie in their 
truth. To a considerable extent, and with noble and 
increasing exceptions, they have been true. They 



THE WORD PREACHED I I 5 

are not to be met by recrimination, nor even by 
a mild rebuke of their intemperance of statement. 
They are to be met and disposed of only by the 
pulpit's heartily identifying itself with all progress ; 
by its throwing aside all unworthy reserves and 
fears, and not tolerating only, but welcoming all 
free thought and inquiry ; and by its declaring a 
cordial sympathy with the main principles and aims 
of practical reform. 

This it is bound to do as the servant of truth, 
humanity, and God. Its position and its language 
upon these points must be clear and unmistakable. 
It must give its cordial encouragement to all earnest 
search for truth, however the stability of cherished 
doctrine may be threatened. It must give its can- 
did and hopeful consideration to every endeavor to 
apply the principles of Christianity to the removal 
of misery and wrong ; to every attempt to organize 
and embody the Christian principle of brotherhood. 

Then the reformer will not long retain his antag- 
onism. He will gladly come back to the church, 
which will include him and his work, and calm his 
heat, while he deepens his earnestness, in the quiet 
atmosphere of her prayers. He will go serene and 
strong and patient, in the constantly renewed 
thought of the long-suffering, always working God. 

The pulpit, indeed, is not the place for theologi- 
cal discussions or criticism. These belong to the 
schools and to books. It has to do with the results 
attained and their practical, moral terminations. It 
has to make statements of theological doctrine al- 
ways, as Jesus did, in relation to life. But it must 
fearlessly accept the genuine results of inquiry. It 



Il6 THE WORD PREACHED 

must not present a theology which contradicts clear 
facts of science or of human nature. It must not 
teach a bibliolatry which shuts its eyes to the plain- 
est dictates of common sense, or puts itself in an- 
tagonism to reason and conscience, — to the living 
word of God in the soul. 

Nor is the pulpit the place for discussing all the 
details of reform. But it must be quick to feel all 
injury done to man, and must state strongly the ap- 
plication of Christian principles to the condemnation 
and removal of existing evils. It must not be silent 
when a great wrong like slavery, in our country, is 
causing untold misery, lowering the moral tone of 
the community and involving all in its meshes. Or 
when intemperance, supported by social customs 
and men's selfish cupidity, is making its terrible 
havoc ; brutalizing bodies and demoralizing souls ; 
desolating homes and crowding prisons. Or, when, 
side by side with the growing wealth of our cities, 
there is growing a permanent pauperism, its awful 
shadow, the home heathenism, shame of our Chris- 
tendom. Or, when the very system on which this 
wealth is accumulated is founded upon an un-Chris- 
tian principle, organizing competition and antagonism 
instead of cooperation and brotherhood. The poli- 
tician and economist may regard these questions 
solely in their material bearings ; the pulpit must 
show their religious and moral, their Christian and 
humane side. It must not avoid them through fear 
of agitation, or through love of peace. It must show 
men how to treat them with earnestness and fidelity, 
yet with justice and charity, too. 

All this work the pulpit can do without neglecting 



THE WORD PREACHED WJ 

its more constant work of refining and sanctifying 
the interior life ; awakening the individual conscience 
to self-discipline ; strengthening the heart to meet 
private trials ; and inculcating that spirit which illu- 
minates the home and, by religious faithfulness, 
glorifies the humble works that lie along the path 
of daily life. It need not " lose its humanity in its 
philanthropy." 

I am not sure of the entire justice of the com- 
plaint sometimes made by the reformer, that the 
pulpit does not, as it should, take the lead in reforms, 
— that is in the literal and visible sense. I do not 
urge the point that, from the very pulpit long since 
disowned, and disowning, the reformer first heard 
those blessed Christian truths of love and justice 
which he now seeks to apply ; and that the seed 
then sown unconsciously led on to the harvest. But 
there may be impelling power that does not literally 
lead. Idly in your harbor swings the ship, her sails 
vainly spread to catch a breath from the dead calm 
air that leaves them drooping in heavy folds. In 
vain, from the distant port, golden dreams beckon 
her on ; in vain the smooth sea spreads out its 
unbroken pathway before her; she does not move. 
But, lo ! a stir ; the canvas flaps and swells ; a 
breeze has sprung up behind ; it fills up the slant 
and scooped sails, and bears the good ship swift and 
glad across the sea. Walking through some vast 
machine-shop, amid its endlessly circling bands, the 
complicated and swift-revolving wheels, the unrest- 
ing movement to and fro of a hundred machines, 
before whose quiet chisels the iron yields like wax, 
you look in vain for the beginning of the motion, till 



Il8 THE WORD PREACHED 

in a small chamber in one corner they show you the 
stationary engine which is the originating power, 
the pulsing heart, of the whole. It does not leave 
its place, but it sends its energy to the remotest 
wheel. 

The pulpit, in a certain sense, is by the necessity 
of its position, conservative ; but it need not be so 
in any other than a good sense. It is this, partly 
because it is an institution ; and partly because it 
is connected with a worship. These things may 
limit it ; but they need not limit it injuriously. On 
the whole, I think them a help rather than a harm. 
Its permanence, if it be not allowed to diminish its 
life, gives to the pulpit a cumulative power. Its 
association with the acts of worship is its peculiar 
advantage. Again and again, with needed repeti- 
tion and recurrence, it presses home its influences, 
and under favorable conditions. It approaches men 
in their best mood. It allies itself to the power of 
personal character and private friendship. It speaks 
in an atmosphere of prayer, withdrawal, devout 
emotion. It speaks a higher than personal word. 
Hence, it can speak from a vantage ground upon 
what are called " exciting topics," subjects elsewhere 
complicated with the strife of partisan politics, with 
personal interests, and material results. Here they 
can be treated in the light of principles ; spoken of 
by lips that have just been trembling with prayers, 
and heard by minds composed by the thought of 
God. 

For if the pulpit be by its position conservative, 
it is by its aim radical ; since it confessedly aims at 
nothing less than the entire uprooting of evil and 



THE WORD PREACHED 1 19 

evils, at the complete conversion and regeneration 
of the world. Perhaps, then, we cannot find a bet- 
ter expression than to say that its peculiar office is 
mediation. 

I know that facts may not seem always to sup- 
port this theory of reform preaching and hearing. 
But if offense come, the pulpit must be careful that 
the "woe " be not justly uttered against itself. It 
is not bound to take for granted that there is an 
antagonism between itself and the hearers on these 
matters. It were better to suppose — is it a too 
violent supposition? — that the hearers would like 
to see clearly their duty in the case. Sometimes 
the preacher seems, in bracing himself to the utter- 
ance of what may be unwelcome truth, to assume, 
unconsciously, an even pugilistic attitude. It is bet- 
ter to be pugilistic than supine, if that were the al- 
ternative. But it is not the alternative. The truth 
must be uncompromisingly spoken. But there 
may be mediation without compromise. The plow- 
share, too, is as uncompromising as the sword ; 
and the seed is a better symbol for the pulpit 
than the bullet. Yet even the serene, mediating 
Jesus found the truth a sword in an evil generation. 
And the generation is not yet passed away in 
which the mildest utterance of unpopular truth 
may sever brother from brother and pastor from 
people. Alas for him by whom the offense cometh ! 
Even if he be only the man who is " as much op- 
posed as any one" to some evil "in the abstract." 
As if evil ever existed in the abstract ! As if the 
abstract, or essential principle, did not always exist 
in the institution ! As if the very work of the pul- 



120 THE WORD PREACHED 

pit were not to induce men to convert their abstract 
belief into practical action ; their abstract virtue into 
daily life ! 

Then if the considerations I have presented be 
of force, the pulpit will retain its place. It will not 
be superseded by the lyceum or the press. Though 
these are great instrumentalities, too. I joyfully 
welcome their advancing influence. I am thankful 
when I find the popular lecture or the newspaper 
made the vehicle, as they ought to be, of moral 
and religious truth — of Christian estimates. I am 
cheered when I see them thus recognizing the 
greatness of their position, and throwing their wide 
influence on the side of God and humanity. I 
claim no monopoly of religion from the pulpit. I 
know that the wells that quench men's thirst are 
not filled merely by the waters that run down from 
church roofs. And while all the evil that darkens 
the world cannot be charged to the pulpit's faith- 
lessness, neither can the good which irradiates the 
darkness be attributed to its influence alone. 

Thus I believe, against all criticisms, that the 
pulpit has a work to do — if it will but do it. That 
it is a living power in. society — if it but have life. 
That it is a conserving salt in the world — if it do 
not lose its savor. 

Therefore I am glad that pulpits — free pulpits 
— should be multiplied ; and more and more the 
word be preached. 

The word. 

What a mystery is a word, — a movement of the 
lips, a vibration of the air, no more. Yet see it call 
the swift crimson of shame to the face, or blanch it 



THE WORD PREACHED 121 

with fear ; see it light up the glazed eye of despair ; 
beat down the defiant lids of villainy ; bring floods of 
assuaging or repentant tears ; see it hush multitudes 
into stillness, or sway their surging emotions ; see 
cowards grow fearless, and kings tremble before it ; 
and thrones crumbling, and nations new-born, and 
strong-based and towering wrongs wavering and un- 
dermined before its vibration. What a mystery is a 
word ! Because it is the image and person of the 
soul ; thought articulate ; intoned emotion ; spirit 
uttered, and put forth. 

" In the beginning was the Word." The divine 
energy went forth, flashing and throbbing athwart 
the chaos, which assumed polarity and began to ar- 
range itself into form. And as the Word sounded 
on, order after order of being sprung up in ever more 
perfect form. The creation is not yet completed. 
Still the Word sounds on, perfecting the outward and 
the moral world. Still in outward nature the stormy 
winds, his messengers, are fulfilling that Word ; and 
still in human hearts and societies and institutions 
new thought and life lead on to a perfect creation. 
Still the divine energy, which is order, which is good, 
is displacing, harmonizing, organizing, regenerating 
the chaos, which is disorder, which is evil. Still, 
" in all ages, entering into holy souls it makes them 
to be children of God and prophets ; " and " to as 
many as receive it, it gives power to become sons of 
God." And still, while creation groaneth and trav- 
aileth, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of 
God, that Word sounds on, throbs on. Through hu- 
man hearts and lives and lips ; through temptations 
in the wilderness and Calvary's cross ; through 



122 THE WORD PREACHED 

prophets' tongues, and reformers' labors, and martyrs' 
fiery deaths ; through thundering providences and 
silent destinies ; through prayers and tears, and 
toils and self-sacrifices ; nay, through errors and 
failures and sins and strifes ; through wars and ru- 
mors of wars, the primal Word sounds on, completing 
his creation, and fulfilling his eternal will. 

"In all ages"? — then in our age ; "to as many 
as receive it " ? — then to us, if we receive it. To 
us the Word is nigh ; even in our hearts. Then let 
us reverently seek it, listen to it, obey it, and yield 
ourselves to work with and for God. 

Not in vain will the word be preached if it be his 
word. 

But we read — and our own experience would 
teach us if we did not read — that the word preached 
does not always profit, not being mixed with faith in 
those that hear. 

The inefificacy of preaching is not all to be laid at 
the preacher's door. I care not how great a claim 
you make upon him, that he should be living and 
earnest. It is all just. But I make the same claim 
upon the hearers, that they be so too. I care not 
how strenuously you urge that the preacher should 
speak from a spirit pure from uncharitableness, nar- 
rowness, or partisanship, free from unworthy timidi- 
ties. I make the same claim upon the hearers. And 
justly. For if there be not willingness, receptive- 
ness, desire on their part, the most angelic eloquence 
must often fail. Jesus could not touch those who 
wrapped themselves up in worldliness, prejudice, and 
self-righteousness. The spring rain of yesterday, 
which started the fields into living green, and pur- 



THE WORD PREACHED 12$ 

pled the garden mould with violets, fell on the rock, 
the sand-bank, the trodden pavement, — and they 
are barren as before ! 

How true it is that, by a spiritual law, only to him 
that hath can be given. How true it is that we 
receive but what we give, or what we are. That our 
spiritual condition makes for us, almost, the outward 
world ; creates for us really the world in which we 
live. Let a number of men be looking together at 
the same landscape — what a different landscape 
they see. To one it is a farm ; to another, house- 
lots ; to another, sporting-ground ; to another, a 
beautiful picture ; to another, a symbol of spiritual 
truth. One sees in it so much wealth that might 
be added to his own ; another, so much means for 
relieving the wants of others ; the sorrowing eye 
sees it cold and sad ; the joyful heart finds its own 
radiance repeated there. " To the pure, all things 
are pure;" the polluted mind turns all things to 
corruption. The hopeful spirit finds in darkest 
events some encouragement ; the distrustful turns 
the most cheering to despair. 

How true it is that "our own spiritual state opens 
or shuts the soul to the entrance of divine messen- 
gers." The word that to the worldly, external man 
is dull, unheeded, and meaningless, to a seeking and 
receptive spirit is power and life. The truth that 
to the thoughtless or self-satisfied is weariness, is to 
a waiting mind light and inspiration ; to the yearn- 
ing heart consolation and peace. The word that to 
the Pharisee was offense came to the Publican as 
hope and redemption. 

The promise is to those that ask and seek. The 



124 THE WORD PREACHED 

man who lives for material and outward things, who 
has never known what it is, with bitter shame, to 
mourn for sin and shortcoming ; to struggle against 
inner weakness or outward temptation ; whose heart 
has never throbbed with a spiritual aspiration, a 
longing for a living faith and a child-like trust ; who 
has never yearned for a personal experience of God's 
presence, for a power to overcome evil and live a 
true life, — how can it fail to be to him unmeaning 
words when the preacher speaks of spiritual realities ; 
of the eternal life within ; of the power and peace of 
prayer ; of an indwelling God ; of the grandeur of 
duty and self-sacrifice ? 

The mere critic, who comes to enjoy finely-turned 
sentences, brilliant word-painting, elegant oratory ; 
the intellectually curious, who comes to hear some 
novelty of speculation ; the sectarian or polemic, who 
comes to get his theological combativeness pleas- 
ingly excited ; the listless, who comes to have his 
feelings played upon ; the indifferent, who comes to 
get the credit of conforming to a respectable cus- 
tom ; the self-righteous, who comes to set an exam- 
ple, not having himself any need, — these may get, 
possibly, what they seek. 

They cannot hope to get — for they have not 
sought — spiritual quickening ; clear sight of duty ; 
strength to conquer temptation ; noble purposes ; 
consciousness of immortality ; sense of God's pres- 
ence ; the Christ-like temper ; a wider and more 
active humanity. 

But the seeking spirit ; the asking mind ; the 
longing heart, that has learned from experience its 
need of a living ministry of truth ; has learned that 



THE WORD PREACHED 1 25 

it " could not stand except in the strength of an 
Almighty arm," — how will it convert to life the 
simplest-spoken words ? While the pampered appe- 
tite, that is not hunger, is discontented without its 
rare and frequent dishes, which are not food, the 
genuine hunger of want finds sweetness and nour- 
ishment in the plainest loaf, if it be but bread. 

If, then, you ask, and it is a question worth seri- 
ous asking, how these Sunday services in which you 
are constantly engaging, and this ministry of the 
word preached, may be made genuine and profitable 
to you ; how you may get from them all the good 
they are capable of affording; I know of but one 
answer : Bring to them a seeking spirit, a feeling 
of your personal need of moral and religious life. 
Bring to them the earnest desire to know the truth, 
that you may live by it ; to know the duty, that you 
may do it. 

Bring this spirit, this sense of need, this desire, 
and you can hardly fail to find these services a real- 
ity ; you will make them such. 

Bring this, and the plainest preaching will hardly 
be dry to you. You will, at least, find nourishment 
in the devout emotions of the prayer and hymns ; 
and the familiar sentences of the Bible will have 
an ever fresh and deepening significance, and be to 
you consolation and strength. 

Bring this, and you will listen with freedom and 
candor to views however opposite to those you may 
have entertained. 

Bring this, and you will be slow to take offense, 
though the word preached run counter to your pre- 
judices, condemn your cherished idols, or call up for 



126 THE WORD PREACHED 

judgment sins in which you may, yourself, be in- 
volved. 

Bring this, and you will bear with the preacher, 
though he be not always prudent or judicious ; 
though in view of some enormities he should express 
an unmeasured indignation. 

Bring this seeking spirit ; this sense of personal 
need ; this desire to know the truth that you may 
know the duty ; bring this life, and how it must 
needs kindle the preacher's heart, and put fire on 
his lips ! How could it fail to encourage his search 
for truth, and deepen the purpose of his life, to feel 
such a response ; to stand in such a charged atmos- 
phere ; to know that they to whom he ministered 
long not to be confirmed in some cherished system, 
but with reverent, yet fearless courage to explore 
the infinite realms of divine Truth ; and to submit 
themselves in trustful obedience to the divine Law. 

But, friends, if through our fault, this word 
preached, with its lessons and its prayers, its weekly 
recurring mission to our souls, be not to us a reality, 
be not a quickening ministry ; if we come and go 
unmoved and unredeemed; if we get no deepened 
sense of the worth of the soul, the nearness of God, 
the true aims of life ; if we are stirred with no nobler 
determination to put away sin and live for God, to 
put away selfishness and live for others' good ; if 
we make no growth in holiness, purity, self-control, 
fidelity to conscience, in the Christian temper and 
likeness to Jesus, — then what a fearful record these 
recurring weeks are laying up against us ; what 
a heavy responsibility for opportunity neglected, 
wasted, misused ! Angels of God, their earnest 



THE WORD PREACHED 127 

pleadings fall in vain upon dulled ears, or is rejected 
by preoccupied minds. Apostles of Christ, their 
searching persuasions are put off to a more conven- 
ient season — and when will it come ? 

Friends, I have come here to fulfill among you, for 
a while, the ministry of the word preached. If it be 
but for a season, let it be none the less for us a 
reality. I would gladly, if I may, open to you some 
new vision of truth ; some wider aspects of faith and 
duty ; some deeper significance in old and familiar 
words ; more gladly yet help to quicken in your 
souls a deeper religious life. I would gladly, if I 
may, so speak to you of spiritual things, that they 
shall seem to you the great realities ; to speak to you 
of the eternal life, that it shall seem to you not far 
separate from the present and outward life, but lying 
ever close beside it, and within it, interwoven with 
it, permeating it, and shaping it ; to speak to you of 
God, that He shall seem to you living and near ; an 
encompassing law, an embosoming love, an indwell- 
ing life and power and peace; seen by purity of 
heart ; received by prayer and obedience. I would 
gladly present to you the vivid image of Jesus, that 
he may be to you "a quickening spirit," a redeeming 
friend. I would speak to you of duty as a noble 
motive ; of right as a thing worth living for and suf- 
fering for ; of self-consecration to serving God by 
doing good to men as the great object of life. I 
would gladly strengthen and enlarge your sympathies 
with all progress in the truth, with all humane ef- 
fort, with all honest endeavors to apply Christian 
principle to the removal of error, misery, and sin, to 
establish on earth liberty, justice, love, and joy, and 
make the kingdom of God actual among men. 



128 THE WORD PREACHED 

I will endeavor to speak to you with freedom and 
sincerity. I beseech you to listen in a spirit that 
loves truth better than cherished prejudices or be- 
liefs ; than personal ties or interests. 

As I walked, a stranger, through your beautiful 
streets, and looked upon strange abodes and strange 
faces, I wondered which of them would become 
familiar to me. Into which of these homes, I thought, 
shall I go as a friend, and leave, perhaps, some ben- 
ediction of peace ? As I met the young men hasten- 
ing to their work, or business, or pleasure, to whom 
of these, I thought, may it be my privilege to sug- 
gest a loftier aim ; a religiousness of purpose that 
shall make life no less active and cheerful, but more 
manly, true, and worthy ? As I saw the children 
bounding from their schools — whom of these, I 
thought, may I help to lead into the arms of Jesus, 
into the bosom of the Father ; whom of them help to 
train to work with Christ for the establishing of the 
kingdom of heaven and earth ? 

Were such thoughts only fancies and dreams ? 
Are they not possibilities ? May they not be reali- 
ties ? Then even these brief summer months may 
not fail of their harvest. 

Brooklyn, April 23, 1853, on entering into a new place of worship. 



A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 

The household of God ... an habitation of God, through the 
Spirit. — Ephesians ii. 19, 22. 

The whole body, fitly joined together, according to the effectual 
working, in its measure, of every part. — Ephesians iv. 16. 

The original meaning of the word church is con- 
vocation or assembly. The very term implies some 
common idea or purpose. It represents something 
more than a mere aggregate of persons such as in- 
dividual and separate errands may bring together at 
any hour in the crowded streets of a city. It im- 
plies, I say, a common, uniting thought or feeling 
or aim ; and if this be permanent, there results a 
common spirit and life which form an organic 
whole. We limit, however, the word church to 
that unity whose central idea is a religious one, — 
the idea of God. The Mohammedan church, the 
Parsee Church, the Buddhist Church, the Christian 
Church, are each that society whose common life is 
in those forms of the religious idea which each 
derives from him whom it regards as its founder, 
and whose thought and influence it perpetuates. 
Through and above all these churches exists that 
universal Church of the race — man in his religious 
relations — which is founded on the ground-idea of 
God that lies at the root of all the various concep- 
tions of God ; whose common life is in that myste- 
rious disposition, that irrepressible tendency toward 



130 A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 

the invisible and the infinite, that universal senti- 
ment of dependence upon a superior Will, that con- 
sciousness of God, which make man to be, by force 
of his nature, in all place and time, a religious be- 
ing. Overarching all, like the universal sky ; en- 
compassing and inspiring all, like the universal air ; 
vitalizing and informing all, like the universal electric 
force, this idea of God, this religious consciousness, 
unites earth's millions in the attitude of prayer. 
Whenever it becomes vital in any human soul, it in- 
vests a citizen of the spiritual world, it initiates a 
member of the heavenly society. Every heart-throb 
of aspiration and devout reverence, every struggle 
to surmount the limits of the actual and the material, 
every sacrifice and martyrdom for the eternal and 
invisible, for right, truth, and good, — these attest the 
common life, and are the sign of the spiritual bro- 
therhood. The oldest books and the most foreign 
tongues record my personal experience of this hour, 
and my inmost emotion comes to me matched in 
traditions beyond the circle of books. 

Modern philosophers have invented the term soli- 
darity to express the idea of a common life of the 
human race, distinct from the life of its individuals. 
To this common life all individual lives are contrib- 
utors. No life is isolated ; but each is influenced 
by, bound to, dependent on, each other. So the race 
grows as the individuals and generations pass away. 
So each age inherits the thought, attainment, culture 
of the previous one, and transmits its own to its 
successor. So the past survives in the present, and 
the present prepares and makes possible the more 
perfect future. So are all human souls and desti- 
nies bound into one. 



A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 131 

The same idea in the religious sphere is expressed 
by the unity of the Church. It is this that the Ro- 
man Catholic Church claims for itself and promises 
to its members. It holds, and makes them sharers 
of, a general spiritual life, transmitted only through 
itself. They are not only recipients of the divine 
grace that resides in its sacraments, but sharers in 
the virtue of its saints and martyrs. I have some- 
times felt that amid the isolation of our individualism, 
I could envy the churchman his sense of membership 
of a great body of brave and consecrated men and 
women. I could appreciate the strength and impulse 
it might be to him to feel that he was one of such a 
host, and to look back and around upon the long line 
of those who had marched under the same banner, 
the sight of whose folds had nerved so many hearts 
for victory, and lighted up so many eyes filming in 
death. But then the thought has come to me, 
" You are indeed, if you will be, a member of this 
and of a yet grander company. These are yours, 
and more too, from whom the Romanist cuts him- 
self off. Look beneath names, and feel the life of 
the invisible, spiritual host, of all brave, true, heroic, 
and saintly souls, made yours if you are in sympa- 
thy with them, not by an external organization, but 
by a spiritual law. No keys are upon its banner, 
but only the cross ; no name save that of God ; 
and these have given vigor to more hearts, and met 
more eyes lifted unfaltering in death, than any one 
church can count within its pale." Friends, let us 
accept this thought, and find in it strength and in- 
spiration ; feel the glory of such ancestry and such 
kindred ; accept the inheritance and the responsi- 



132 A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 

bility of transmitting it enlarged. If there is any- 
thing in you of heroism, of fidelity to duty, of love 
of truth, of consecration, of devotedness, of the 
martyr spirit and the saintly soul, it binds you to 
every brave, faithful, true, and holy spirit that has 
lived, or is living, in the flesh. This life of God in 
your soul is the same life that dwells in theirs, and 
transmits a divine power. The heart-throb with 
which you read their prayers, their words of noble- 
ness, their acts of self-sacrifice, is the pulse that 
assures you that the electric circuit is complete, and 
embraces you, too, and invigorates. As the rich 
chords from a consenting choir are not merely the 
sum and affluence of the separate tones, but each 
tone is itself made firmer and purer by the influence 
of the rest, so your voice is no more feeble, being 
solitary against the wrong and in behalf of the 
right. You are not left to work, pray, contend, 
overcome, alone. Be true, and, like the prophet, 
you are surrounded with horsemen and chariots of 
fire, whom the timid and sense-bound cannot see. 
Be noble, and thousands as noble and nobler environ 

you. 

" Ever their phantoms rise before us, 
Our elder brothers, but one in blood ; 
By day and night they lord it o'er us, 
With looks of beauty and words of good." 

This is the true sacramental host of God's elect ; 
the cloud of witnesses ; the glorious company and 
noble fellowship. This, the true Church Catholic. 

But, leaving this wide and attractive theme of 
the Church universal, spiritual, invisible, I pass on 
to speak of the more limited thing we call a church. 



A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 1 33 

such as we are founding here. For I hope that this 
society is to be a church and not an audience merely. 
And a church I define to be a society of men and 
women and children, associated by a religious spirit, 
and for a religions work. 

I wish to lay stress upon this word religious. 

A church must justify its existence by this, that 
it holds as its special thought — not its exclusive 
possession, but its special thought — the idea of 
God. This it is to apply over the whole domain of 
life. With this it is to meet all private needs and 
confront all public emergencies. By this it is to 
try all spirits, tempers, and aims ; by this to judge 
all customs, institutions, laws. This makes the 
church's position to be (as I said to you of the pul- 
pit's) one of high mediation, at once conservative 
and radical, because this idea of God is at once the 
most conservative and most radical of ideas. "Re- 
maining in himself, He passes through all things, 
making them evermore new." His immutable Per- 
manence is the ground of all our faith and all our 
prayers : his regenerating Immanence, the inspira- 
tion of all our effort for the triumph of good over 
evil, the coming of Heaven among men. So the 
church is religious. Its work is to make vital the 
thought of the living and infinitely present God, in 
the life of its members and of society. " Exceeding 
broad " it is — this religion, this eternal life of souls 
bound to God in the sense of his intimate presence 
and the consciousness of sonship. It is a piety that 
includes morality and humanity, as man is included 
in God. No dreamy aurora of mystic reverie ; nor 
altar-fire of periodic ceremonial ; nor rare lightning 



134 ^ SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 

of retributive remorse, declaring and restoring a lost 
equilibrium ; nor hearth-flame of domestic affection, 
and serving domestic needs, — not these alone, but 
more : an all-encompassing and quickening sunlight, 
lighting every human work ; an inner vital heat, 
moving every motion ; the circulating currents of 
the Divine Spirit. This life of God every church is 
to receive and manifest ; therefore I lay stress on 
the word religious. 

And again, I wish to emphasize the word spirit, 
as distinguished from doctrine and form. Some 
creed or system of opinions about religion is almost 
universally the centre around which our churches 
are gathered ; or else some rite. Now, I do not 
deny that similarity of opinion is a bond of union. 
We are drawn to those who think like ourselves. 
But it is not the strongest or deepest bond. It is 
easily overridden by spiritual sympathy, or annulled 
by the want of that. Neither do I mean to under- 
value correct opinion as making clear the way to 
right feeling and right action, though quite as often 
right feeling and action will lead to correct opinion. 
Nor do I deny their value to religious rites. But a 
unity sought in uniformity of belief, or of ritual or 
organization, is but superficial. Nor can it be per- 
manent unless it destroy freedom and growth, and 
with them life. We must look deeper for the bond 
of living and abiding unity. And we shall find it 
where it has always existed, amid the diversities of 
belief and organization, and under all their strifes, — 
in that unity of spirit which is alone the bond of 
an enduring peace. This unites, while creeds and 
forms sunder, and shut off as many as they shut in. 



A SPIRITUAL AND IVOR KING CHURCH 135 

Alien intellects are brethren here, and walls vanish. 
Therefore I emphasize the word spirit. 

Again, I wish to lay special stress upon the word 
work. Associated, I said, for a religious work. I 
doubt whether this be at all the prominent idea in 
our churches. Men join a religious society with the 
idea rather of receiving than doing. To secure 
some personal outward benefit from the connection, 
perhaps ; or to secure a personal enjoyment or good 
from the preaching ; or to secure a personal salva- 
tion in the future ; or because they are taught to 
think it a duty, or the appointed proof of faith. 
And they pay their contribution or tax of money in 
return for the possession of their pew, or of their 
share of whatever benefits may accrue. But the 
desire to be of help to others, to join others in doing 
good, to make the association with them a means of 
enlarged action ; the willingness and sense of obliga- 
tion to contribute themselves, their talents, ener- 
gies, possessions, attainments, to the effective work- 
ing power of the body, — how many are there who 
think of this ? And yet it seems to me that nothing 
short of this can make a real church. Only this can 
be such a " body " as Paul speaks of, — " fitly joined 
together, and compacted by that which every joint 
supplieth, according to the effectual working, after 
its measure, of every joint ; " only this can be a 
redeeming power in a community and the world. 
Nothing would be so sure to keep life in a church 
as its making itself a working church. Nothing 
would be so sure to keep it filled with the Spirit. 
Nothing would so bind its members together, no- 
thing so surely tend to make them think alike, if 



136 A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 

that be desired, as uniting in common labors. It 
seems to me that a church has no right to be, unless 
it can thus make good its claim. The world has a 
right to put to it the question of the Jews: "What 
sign showest thou, that we may see and believe 
thee ; what dost thou work ? " It has a right to 
expect from it wonders of feeding and healing and 
restoration. 

It seems to me that, whenever a new church is 
formed, the angels in heaven ought to sing again, 
Now shall there be peace on earth, and good-will 
among men. And God should say, Now is my 
kingdom nearer, and my will more truly to be done 
on earth. And Jesus should rejoice in spirit and 
cry, Behold, new laborers for the harvest ; now shall 
men learn to love God with all their heart and 
strength, and their neighbor as themselves. And 
old prophets' hearts should be stirred anew, as they 
proclaim, Now shall men beat their swords into 
plowshares, and deal their bread to the hungry, and 
undo the heavy burdens, and give justice to the 
fatherless, and break every yoke. 

It seems to me as if, whenever a new church is 
formed, earth's suffering, sinning, wronged, and per- 
ishing ones should lift their heads, and a new hope 
light up their eyes, as they cried, You will help us, 
you will save us ; in the name of the God you say 
is our Father, the Christ you say is our Redeemer. 
And all good men's hearts should be gladdened; 
and earth's tyrants and tempters, and plotters of 
wrong, and framers of unjust laws, should cower and 
tremble, as before a new moral force rising up to 
conquer them. Is it so ? I will not doubt that 



A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 1 37 

every church does something to this end. But the 
whole creation still groaneth in pain, waiting for 
the manifestation of the sons of God. 

To work with God, and for God, then, should be 
the great and consecrated aim of every church; to 
make its associative life contribute to the accom- 
plishing somewhat of the divine purpose ; to lend 
its aid to redeeming the world from its sins, its 
wrongs, and its wretchedness ; to reforming the age 
and the community from its special evils, and unjust 
thoughts and institutions ; to advancing its spiritual 
elevation and moral purification. In short, every 
church should work for the coming of the kingdom 
of heaven, the reign of justice and unselfish love, of 
freedom and peace, and holiness and brotherhood. 

Jesus organized no formal church. He was too 
earnestly intent upon quickening the dead souls 
around him into life, and awakening them to a vital 
consciousness of God, to have time or thought of 
outward forms and organizations. He trusted to 
the power of influence, and left his life in the world 
to take form in obedience to special needs. And it 
has done so. But these forms have been, and con- 
tinually will be, broken up and reformed by the 
floods of the spirit ; which continually, as in Jesus, 
sets men free from the bondage of the ritual and 
technical, into the liberty of the spiritual and univer- 
sal religion. 

We bear the name Christian, partly because we 
are in the direct line of descent from those who first 
bore it ; partly because it represents to us, in its 
conection with Jesus, that form of the religious idea 
and spirit which we feel to be the highest and 



138 A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 

truest. But we use it not as if it were the name of 
a sect, but as synonymous with religious, in the 
broadest sense of that word. 

A Christian church is one which has received the 
idea and the spirit of Jesus, and which offers its 
glad consecration to fulfilling the work which was 
dear to his heart. And what was that idea ? It 
was the Fatherhood of an encompassing and indwell- 
ing God ; the Sonship and Brotherhood of Man. 
And what was that spirit ? It was the spirit of con- 
secrated service, which came " not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister," to " do the Father's work 
while it was day." And what was that work ? 
" He hath anointed me to preach good tidings to 
the poor ; to heal the broken-hearted ; to proclaim 
deliverance to the captive ; and recovery of sight to 
the blind ; to set at liberty them that are bruised." 

The question, then, of every one entering a Chris- 
tian church should be, How shall I gain, and help 
others to gain, this religious idea, this religious 
spirit, in order that we may thereby be able to carry 
on the work of God, to which Jesus devoted himself ? 
For if the idea of God have really become vital 
within us, bringing us a sense of his indwelling 
Presence, it cannot end in reverie, but must be an 
inspiration to action. And if the spirit of Jesus have 
really touched and quickened our souls, it must have 
moved them to be doing good. 

And now, friends, can we not be such a church 
here ? — united by a religious spirit, for a religious 
work ? With God's help, we will. 

We will take for our basis not a creed, but the spirit. 
We will agree to differ in our theological opinions 



A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 1 39 

and beliefs, while we will strive, in a common love 
of the truth, after higher and clearer views of it. 
Eelieving that only through freedom can the truth 
be reached, we will put no shackles on any, nor place 
any obstacle, even of coldness or suspicion, in the 
way of freest thinking. And regarding this freedom 
as more precious than uniformity of belief, we will 
make it more prominent than any doctrine. We 
will assume no responsibility for opinions, and im- 
pose none. We may hold the most widely differing 
beliefs about the nature of God's being, while we 
strive together to deepen our reverence and love for 
Him, to yield a more complete obedience to his 
law, and win a profounder consciousness of his pres- 
ence and his peace. We may hold, as we now do, 
different views about Jesus, but we will be united by 
a common reverence and love for his spirit, and find 
in his life, however regarded, redemption from our 
sins, and quickening to our piety and our humanity. 1 
Then, again, we will unite ourselves here, not for 
forms, but for work. We shall not discard forms. I 
trust we may gather about us much that, through 
beauty and symbolic suggestion, may touch our 
hearts to strains of reverence and purity. We shall 
not discard forms. The order of our Sunday exer- 
cises of prayers, and hymns, and preaching is a form. 

1 And here let me repeat my wish, that the name of our church 
were one that indicated this position of freedom, rather than one 
founded on a theological doctrine. Not that I am anxious to escape 
any reproach that may possibly attach to the name Unitarian, nor 
because I desire to sever myself from those who bear that name, but 
because I wish to be joined to all who prize freedom above opin- 
ion ; truth above any attained expression of it ; the spirit above 
the letter. 



I40 A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 

We do not propose to omit the rites of baptism and 
the communion. But we will not regard any forms 
as essential or obligatory. We will not place them 
above, or on a level with, the spirit and the life. We 
will not regard church-going, and water-baptism, and 
the partaking of bread and wine as duties, like speak- 
ing the truth, and doing the right, and serving our 
neighbor. These ritual forms shall be to us helps 
to the spirit and the life, expressions and quickeners 
of feeling, good for all who can be so helped by 
them, but binding upon none. They do not consti- 
tute a church ; it uses them. I can understand why 
Jesus, though desiring to be baptized himself, yet 
baptized none ; and whatever direction he may have 
given to his immediate disciples, I find no command 
for me, or that my conscience recognizes as of per- 
manent obligation. And when I transport myself to 
that upper chamber so near to Gethsemane and Cal- 
vary, I see the anguish and the love of that hour 
transfiguring, at the moment, the paschal bread and 
wine, but I see no institution of a rite ; I hear no 
word of any beyond that circle of friends so soon to 
need every help to their faith, nor any tone of com- 
mand, but only the accents of an affectionate request. 
I doubt not those disciples saw ever after a new 
meaning in the bread and wine they ate. Those 
who came after them observed a rite, yet as privilege 
rather than obligation, and found in it a bond of union 
amid outward persecution. At last authority and 
superstition seized it and made it a proof of faith ; a 
channel of else-denied grace ; the burden of a law 
such as Paul rejoiced that Christ had freed him from ; 
and a trap to consciences. We shall find in the rite, 



A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 141 

made free to all, a commemoration, a service of the 
feelings, which will be only what suggestion and as- 
sociation can make it to be, — precious and helpful 
to some, binding upon none. Not imposing obliga- 
tions we were else free from, but able to remind us 
of those we are always under. Bringing us near in 
thought and spirit to One in whose companionship 
it is always good to be ; and ever significant to us of 
that brotherhood after which we long and labor. So 
regarded, I cannot but think this rite would be good 
to many who now disregard it as of no value beside 
the efforts of practical Christianity in which they are 
engaged. Well to enter at times into its shrined quiet 
as into the aisles of the silent, storied cathedral from 
the crowd and work of the streets; or into those 
mountain wood-paths which lead our feet to no labor 
and end at no poor man's door. For any mere form 
I have not a word to say ; but a form need not be a 
mere form. It may be informed by that which shall 
after be a power of work. 

And so we come back to our aim, to what, I hope, is 
to be the aim of this church, this society of men and 
women and children, united for a religious work. 
So that whoever shall join us shall ask, first of all, 
" What is there for me to do ? " So that the young- 
people, from the beginning, and as they grow up, 
shall feel that they are entering into a circle where 
service is the ruling spirit ; and in whose organiza- 
tion they shall find the companionship offered, and 
the way marked out, and the channel provided, for 
all their willingness to do good; so that that willing- 
ness may not die out, but be strengthened into will 
and purpose and habit. 



142 A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 

For, I think, there is often more of this willing- 
ness, and even desire, to do good than we know of. 
It needs that the church should offer in its organi- 
zation some definite channels through which it may 
act, and the stimulus of companionship. 

Let me offer a sketch of the work which I sup- 
pose might be done by a church, — by this church. 
I arrange it under three heads : — 

I. Culture of the religious spirit. Under this 
head should be : ist. The regular meetings for pub- 
lic worship. To these all should contribute, of 
their money, since money is needed, liberally, accord- 
ing to their means, as to a ministration which they 
believe to be good for themselves, their families, the 
community. Those who are rich should give gen- 
erously, nor for themselves alone, but for their 
poorer neighbors, that none may be debarred these 
religious benefits on account of the cost ; and these 
contributions, under whatever name or form they 
are collected, should be regarded as gifts and not as 
purchase-money. Those who have, should give 
their voices and musical culture to the hymns and 
choral service. All should give their attendance 
and interest, and the contribution of their engaged 
and devout feelings. 2d. Meetings for religious con- 
versation, reading, devout exercises. 3d. Religious 
rites, especially the communion, of which I have 
spoken above. 

II. Religious education. Under this head come : 
ist. The Sunday-school, a most important means 
and opportunity of doing good, demanding fidelity 
and self-denial, faith, affection, and personal conse- 
cration. 2d. Classes of adults for the study of the 



A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 1 43 

Bible, and of theological doctrines and questions of 
religious philosophy. 3d. Meetings for the cultiva- 
tion of religious music. 4th. A church library. 5th. 
Printing and distributing books and tracts. 6th. The 
instruction of poor and neglected children. 

III. Religious beneficence and philanthropic action. 
Under this head would be: 1st. Meetings for the 
consideration of such questions as pauperism, drunk- 
enness, slavery, war, crime and punishment, labor, 
and all movements of practical reform. 2d. Practi- 
cal action in behalf of these movements. 3d. 
Monthly contributions to benevolent purposes. 4th. 
Visiting and working for the poor, visiting prisons, 
watching with the sick. 

So much of organization there should be in these 
different departments as might be needed for effi- 
cient action. An organization which would not in- 
terfere with, but would stimulate and aid, individual 
action. Each person should select some one or more 
of those departments of action to which he was 
specially attached or fitted, and engage in it in com- 
pany with others interested in the same direction. 
For this purpose, committees, classes, associations 
should be formed, and these would offer the ready 
channel for whatever desire and willingness to work 
might be awakened in any. 

This is a rough sketch of what I think the work 
of a church should be. I have marked out no more 
than is quite practicable, I believe. Something of it 
is done in all churches. I know not how much of it 
we may accomplish here ; but, only let there be the 
desire and the aim ; only let every one bring his 
talent, his means, acquirements, willingness, as con- 



144 A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 

tributions to the general life and effective working 
power of the whole, and we shall be sure to do some- 
thing. Something that God will accept as true wor- 
ship and service, and man be the happier for. Then 
we should not fail to be a living, because a working, 
church. A church free, spiritual, actively benev- 
olent, sympathizing with all great hopes and humane 
movements. Would not this be, indeed, a "house- 
hold of God ; " whose light was the Father's smile, 
and whose law the Father's will, and the Father's 
abiding presence its inspiring life ? Would it not be 
worthy to bear the dear name of Jesus ? In building 
up here such a church, how gladly would I help you, 
and be helped by you. For you must do it, — not I 
alone. 

The occasion justifies and demands a more per- 
sonal word before I close. 

Remember, friends, and do not let me forget, that 
I am here to serve you. Do not fail to give me the 
opportunities. Let your urgency keep alive my 
faithfulness. If ever in hours of doubt and unbelief 
you have longed for a friend whose faith might 
strengthen yours ; if ever, baffled and perplexed in 
the search of truth, you have longed for guidance; 
if, amid vague aspirations and hopes and desires after 
religious life and moral earnestness and true fidelity, 
you have yearned for a sympathy that might give 
definiteness and direction and vigor to your fleeting 
emotions and unfixed aims ; if amid moral weakness, 
indifference, or deadness, you have felt the need of 
one to arouse you with the clear word of duty ; if, 
amid a life of frivolity and surface, you have felt a 
restless sense of dissatisfaction and longed to hear 



A SPIRITUAL AND WORKING CHURCH 1 45 

sincerer, deeper words, and reach down to realities ; 
if, enslaved by unworthy habit, you have needed a 
brotherly encouragement to nerve your weakened 
will to set itself free ; if, in the darkness and loneli- 
ness of sorrow, you have needed one whose experi- 
ence could comprehend yours, and assure you of the 
hidden light to be revealed in the cross, and lift your 
trembling, shattered heart to fix itself on God ; and if, 
in any of these needs and experiences of life, I can 
help you, believe that it will be my truest satisfaction, 
as it is my most earnest desire. I dare not promise 
that I can always meet these needs. I know how 
often I shall feel my own insufficiency. But I know 
that behind and above me is God, an infinite strength, 
light, love, peace ; a guide and keeper, and defender 
and inspirer. To Him we will go together, and He 
will hear our prayers. 

Brooklyn, October 30, 1853, on assuming the pastorate. 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, 
and in you all. — Ephesians iv. 6. 

These are Paul's grand words. Here we have his 
Unity, his Trinity, his Pantheism. And no one has 
risen or penetrated to the essence of religion, it seems 
to me, who has not risen or penetrated from a formal 
and mathematical Unity, from a scholastic Trinity, 
from a material or metaphysical Pantheism, to some 
thought as large and central as this of Paul's. 

One God ! We must hasten to pronounce, with 
reverent and earnest emphasis, this word ; to enun- 
ciate this thought, as if we would blazon it all over 
these walls. It is the only j ustification of their being 
built. It would glorify them, were they the barest 
that could be builded. It would justify every amount 
of richness that might be brought to adorn them in 
the unstinting feeling that devotes the best to the 
highest. 

But in vain, friends, shall we inscribe the name of 
God upon these walls, if it be not written in our 
hearts. In vain would be the most studied plainness, 
if there were not simplicity and sincerity of soul. 
In vain the costliest enrichments of beauty, if the 
spirit of unselfish devotion were not there. In vain 
the lowly roof, if the spirit of humility be absent ; or 
the lofty tower, if there be no spiritual aspiration. 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 147 

In vain the ceremonial of dedication, if there be no 
reverent consecration of ourselves and our possessions 
to divine uses in the scenes of daily life. In short, 
if this external do not in some sort represent our 
sincere thought and feeling, if the outer temple be 
not a form of the temple of God in us, then it is 
nothing, and worse than nothing, — a pretense and 
a ruin. 

But it is not that, friends ; we know it is not. 
However imperfect, and at times inoperative, our 
faith in God may be, it is real. It is not simply some 
traditional notion ; it is not merely custom, or a 
sense of respectability or propriety, that has led us 
to build this house. It is because we have felt a 
need of God, and have learned and know that there 
is a supply to that need. It is because we have felt 
the need to deepen that knowledge, to intensify that 
experience, in every way to open, and nourish, and 
keep alive the sense of God. Because we have found 
in ourselves a spiritual nature, which in the thought 
of God and its kindred thoughts finds its life and 
power and joy. Because we have found in prayer, 
and in religious meditation and instruction, real and 
mighty sources of peace and fidelity, and moral en- 
largement, and power to withstand and conquer. 
Because, in short, there is a whole world other than 
the outward and visible world, and superior to that, 
and we want to know more and ever more of this 
inner world, its hopes and sustainments and satis- 
factions ; and we want our friends and our children, 
and many, many, in coming years, whom now we 
know not nor have seen, to have an opportunity of 
doing the same. 



I48 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

You build a house and make it as handsome as 
you can, not because you cannot live elsewhere, but 
because you want for yourselves and your children a 
pleasant home. And you build a church, and make 
it as lovely as you can, because you believe that 
through the powers of suggestion and association, 
and the gathering and clustering of feeling and 
imagination, you can here worship and learn, — not 
more sincerely, indeed, than elsewhere, but more 
happily and more perfectly. 

Religion is man's consciousness of God. Theology 
is man's theory of God. What men have felt in 
their deepest moments of exaltation, what they have 
seen in their highest upliftings and clearest openings 
of thought, what they have learned in their most 
faithful doing of righteousness, they try to state in 
words ; and that statement is their doctrine or phi- 
losophy of religion, — their theology. Most churches 
are founded on some system of theology. The dif- 
ficulty is that these systems are not drawn out of 
the highest thought, the profoundest feeling, the 
most earnest experience, of those who promulgate 
them ; but are traditions, utterances of a past age, 
consolidated into creeds and made obligatory. Those 
to whom they are taught are not permitted to test 
them by their correspondence to their highest rea- 
son, conscience, and spiritual nature, but are bidden 
to receive them on bare authority of some ancient 
church, council, assembly, or book. 

And this is just as true of the Protestant churches 
as of the Roman Catholic. The only difference is, 
that while the Protestant churches proclaim the lib- 
erty of private judgment, they do noX. grant it, except 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 1 49 

under penalties that amount to prohibition ; while 
the Roman Catholic Church has at least the merit 
of consistency. Believing that free, individual in- 
quiry may be fatally dangerous, she refuses it to her 
children. Doubtless, in both cases, many take what 
is not granted. 

We do not believe that free inquiry is dangerous. 
We believe it to be the right, and the privilege, and 
the duty of every man. Believing this, we put no 
limitation to it. We urge it ; we have confidence in 
its safety ; we are not afraid of its consequences. 
We nowhere draw the boundary line. We ask only 
that the spirit be sincere, and desire that it be rev- 
erent, and not scoffing. 

There is no consistent, half-way position, it seems 
to me, between the Roman Catholic doctrine of the 
absolute authority of the Church over the individual 
soul and the Transcendental doctrine of the absolute 
authority of the individual soul to itself. For one, 
I do not for a moment hesitate which position to 
take. " Better an outlaw than not free ; " for only 
through freedom can the truth be reached. And 
truth is seen by any man only through his own con- 
victions. What is in these is truth ; what is in his 
memory is tradition. No error is fatal. The seek- 
ing soul never wanders hopelessly, never wanders 
alone. Made for truth, if it obeys its own law in 
freedom, it gravitates certainly toward the truth, 
even if slowly. And let us remember that the truth 
is always seeking us, as we seek the truth. Then 
down with the bars and the walls ! off with the 
chains ! proclaim liberty to all to think and to inquire ! 
Esteem nothing so sacred but this right is as sacred ! 



150 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

Accept all the perils and pains of freedom in view 
of its overwhelming advantages and privileges ! Bear 
gladly its cross and its reproach ; nor fear the com- 
pany into which it brings you, though they be very 
publicans and sinners in the eyes of all the Pharisa- 
ism of the land ! 

When Protestantism unmoored from the Estab- 
lished Church, it set itself upon a longer voyage than 
it dreamed. That voyage is not yet ended ; nor will 
it be, while the world lasts. Lovest thou not the 
rocking and darting of the ship, the keen freshness 
of the air, the roll of the water, the whirr of the 
gale ? — Go back, then, to thy cloister, and fall asleep 
under the shadow of great names ! But leave to us 
the glad delight of ever fresh discovery, ever new 
exploration. Our home is on the deep, yea, the deep 
of God ! Bends not the sky above us with its stars ? 
Can we outsail them ? Guides us not the ever true, 
if trembling, needle within ? Can we ever go where 
it will quite lose its polarity ? Nowhere in God's 
universe ! 

It is related that when the sailors, who went with 
Columbus on his first voyage, for the first time per- 
ceived the variation of the needle, and that it no 
longer pointed to the north star, they were struck 
with panic and dismay, and supposed that this their 
only guide had lost its power to lead them. But it 
had not. And we — do we side with Columbus or 
with the timid sailors? You will not leave your 
island, which you have wandered round and round, 
have meted all its landmarks, and know every hill 
and tree and rock. You will not leave your solid 
ground of things established for that cloud on the 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 151 

horizon. We go, and find the cloud a mighty conti- 
nent ! 

Under the guidance of this freedom, we seek an 
expression of the thought of God and his relations 
to man. 

" One God and Father of all, who is above 
all, and through all, and in you all." 

We must hold God to be One. Whether from the 
consciousness, amid all distractions, of his own es- 
sential unity, or from some other cause, man can 
rest only in the idea of one God. Philosophers de- 
clare this idea to have always existed vaguely behind 
every form of polytheism, and show that the race in 
its religious thought has, from the first, been tend- 
ing towards monotheism. Nothing short of the 
most entire and absolute unity in our idea of God 
can solve, it seems to me, the problem of the world. 
Nothing short of that can wing our prayers with 
undisturbed assurance. It is not a question of more 
or fewer. It is not enough to give up the twelve 
gods of Pagan Rome, and keep the three of Christen- 
dom, whom it calls One, but by no effort of the 
mind can, when it prays, conceive of as one. It is 
not enough if we cannot better solve the problem of 
evil than after the old Persian fashion, but must con- 
tinue to divide the sovereignty of the universe be- 
tween two Gods, — a good God and an evil God ; and 
make the evil God so nearly almighty that he con- 
tinually thwarts and defeats the will of the good 
God, and ends by carrying off into the tortures of 
perpetual slavery more than one half of his children. 
Against every form of Polytheism, Tritheism, and 
Ditheism, regarding them all as crude and altogether 



152 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

inadequate attempts to state the problem of God, 
we must continue to assert his simple absolute Unity, 
and hold fast to that. That alone can reconcile 
all things. That alone can give us repose. Such a 
God alone can we pray to, or obey with unfaltering 
assurance, amidst all the distractions of our exist- 
ence. One Power, one Truth, one Right, one Love, 
one God and Father of all ! Of manifestation, not 
two or three, but innumerable, modes ; of being, 
one, absolutely one. 

But here I must say that a merely numerical unity 
is not enough. It is not enough, with the Deist and 
many Unitarians, to have the idea of God as One, 
merely through being a single individual, though 
immeasurably greater than all other beings, and su- 
preme above all as their Creator, Governor, and 
watchful Father. If God be but thus a single indi- 
vidual, however great, then we can but say, There 
might be many Gods, only there is but one. We 
ask a higher, a grander Unity than this. A God who 
is One because He so fills all that there is no room 
for any other. Such a Unity can exist only in pure 
Spirit ; and we must put off from our conception of 
God all limitations of individuality before we can 
come to the true conception of his infinite personal- 
ity. Our spirits teach us of spirit ; and our spirits, 
if we trust them, will, out of their very limitations, 
rise to the idea of an Unlimited and Infinite. It 
does not suffice that we put away the child's or the 
poet's conception of God as a venerable man, an- 
cient of days, with flowing snow-white beard, speak- 
ing in the thunder, walking on the wings of the 
wind, and in the lightning flashing his unsleeping 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 153 

eye. It is not enough that we cease to believe Him 
to have literal hands and feet. It is a refined idola- 
try still, if we continue to think of Him as using, 
like a man, successive thoughts, directing a special 
and definite will to minute and separate ends ; with 
a purpose and providence occupied in managing de- 
tails and arranging plans, and affections selecting, 
and directing themselves to, individual objects. The 
ever so immensely Finite is not Infinite ; and though 
we cannot from our conception put off all finiteness, 
let us do so as much as we can. Let us think of 
God as the all-pervading Life, the all-embracing 
Energy, which lives at every point, and wherever it 
lives is Thought, and Love, is Spirit, and so is Per- 
son. Let us conceive of Him as the Unity which 
contains all things, as a great idea contains all the 
details of thought which may be evolved from it ; as 
the artist's imagination flashes forth a whole which 
includes all the separate parts which his fancy and 
his hands must successively and laboriously make 
visible. And though, in speaking of God, we can- 
not put off from our language its necessary inade- 
quacy, yet if we seek for physical representations of 
him, let us take the most subtle and unconfined of 
material things ; not this dense human body, but 
rather the flowing, pervading, embosoming atmos- 
phere, the sweet, diffusive, penetrating light, or those 
yet subtler, vitalizing forces of nature which flow 
around and through us all, on such a radiant day as 
that which has just set. But even here we must not 
mistake our figures of speech for the reality which 
they only hint. Better in the highest action and ex- 
perience of our souls seek to know, as there only we 



154 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

can begin to know, how and what God is ; or best 
of all, perhaps, content ourselves with saying in a 
word, God is, and in that Infinite Presence merge 
all specialities. 

"One God," — thus One, — and yet " Father of 
all." Father, because He is Thought, and Love, 
and Will, akin to our souls by a paternity which we 
know, because we are thought, and love, and will. 
Made in his image, our reaching affection feels his ; 
yet feels it not as something limited, peculiarly di- 
rected upon us, but as something infinite, in whose 
warm atmosphere we, with all, are embosomed. 
Yes, Father of all ; of the good and of the wicked, of 
the just and of the unjust ; who asks obedience only 
for his children's good ; whose long-suffering and 
redeeming love their wanderings can never exhaust 
or alienate ; who wills not that one of his little ones 
should perish, but to all eternity seeks and saves the 
lost. Yes, Father of all ; not Jews alone, — his chil- 
dren and chosen people, — nor yet Christians alone ; 
but all races and nations of mankind, of every name ; 
under every sky, in every age. All, as they looked 
upward from the seen to the unseen, groping with 
more or less clearness of intelligence after a higher 
than themselves, have worshiped, under many 
names, the One and same, because the only, God. 
And all their prayers, whether offered to Allah, Fo, 
or Brahma, or Jehovah, or Jove, or Manitou, have 
alike been heard of Him who cares not for names, 
but seeth the thought of the heart. Men are accus- 
tomed to call this thought of the Fatherhood of God 
the special new revelation of Jesus Christ. But 
this, like the doctrine of immortality, was known and 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 1 55 

spoken of long before Christianity, and far beyond it. 
We do not honor and strengthen Christianity when 
we claim it as a specialty ; we more honor and 
strengthen it when we show its universality and 
correspondence with the general yearnings of the 
thought of the race. What is special in a religion 
is most likely to be what is formal and transitory. 
What is universal is eternal. We shall best inter- 
pret Christianity if we regard it as a mightier and 
purer flood of the streams which have been from the 
beginning, are now, and ever shall be. 

" One God, who is above all." The reverence 
of men always looks up to a God above. This is 
their first thought of God ; and it is their abiding 
thought, never to be outgrown. Even the specu- 
lative atheist, who chooses to call himself atheist 
because he cannot prove a God by his senses or un- 
derstanding alone, or because he cannot accept the 
prevailing notion about a separate and individual 
being called a God, still may believe in a moral law 
which is obligatory upon him and upon all men, yet 
which he did not make nor any man make ; and in 
believing this he believes in God, though he may 
not choose to use that name, for he believes in a 
spiritual power that is above all. So even he justi- 
fies that sentiment which in all ages has led men to 
look upwards from the earthly and the seen, and in 
all ages, the wide world round, has bent earth's mil- 
lions in the attitude of prayer. Grand is the self- 
reliant trust of a man in himself ; but grander is the 
reverence which, in a humility that is at the same 
time an exaltation, acknowledges a power superior 
to man. Noble is the freedom which refuses sub- 



156 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

mission to every arbitrary authority ; but nobler is 
the obedience which voluntarily offers itself to a law 
which it freely feels to be divine. Mighty is the 
energy that throws itself on the unaided force of its 
own resolve ; but mightier is the power which con- 
tinually reinforces and purifies its will by consecrat- 
ing it to the Supreme. 

" Unless above himself he can 
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man ! " 

Of course when I speak of God being above all, I 
do not mean that He is so in the sense of being 
upon a throne far away above the skies, or anything 
like that. At every point it is necessary to combat 
those literal mythological notions of an individual 
God existing in shape and place ; for so powerful is 
the influence of language, that not children only, but 
intelligent, grown people, in great numbers, — nay, 
I should think in the majority, — still hold to some 
more or less vague form of this conception of God. 
But God, the Spirit, is above all in the sense that 
He is greater than all. He, the Infinite, contains 
and embosoms all. He, the Absolute, is the ground 
and being of all ; without whom nothing would be, 
in whom all things are, and from whom all things 
continually proceed. He is above all, in that He is 
mightier than all, and rules all, even as He makes 
all. He holds all things, and the ongoings of things, 
all men, and the thoughts and purposes of men, 
completely environed in his eternal purpose, which 
was from the beginning, and is forever, one and 
unchanged. He holds us and our little freedom, 
even as the mother's embracing but unconstraining 
arms hold in their circle the little stumbling feet of 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 1 57 

her child taking his first steps alone. He is above 
all ; and what man can do, in his little freedom, by 
sin, and selfishness, and ignorance, to thwart Him, 
is no more than a babe's finger can do to stay 
Niagara. He is above all, and He is never thwarted, 
— no, not for a moment, — nor his law ever broken. 
It may seem as if it were ; but the most hideous 
wickedness of the tyrants, the enslavers, the cor- 
rupters and slayers of men, does no more thwart or 
break his law than you would put back the rising of 
the sun to-morrow morning by putting back the 
hands on the town clock. 

We all of us remember how, a few years ago, the 
" great atheism " went from end to end of this land, 
which declared that there is no higher law for man 
than constitutions and the acts of legislators and 
congresses. We know how the astute and eloquent 
statesmen ridiculed the idea of the supremacy of the 
conscience above legislation. We remember how 
ministers preached submission from the text, "The 
powers that be are ordained of God," and how they 
bade us bow down and crush all our own native 
sentiments of humanity and justice beneath the 
tyranny of a wicked law. We know what has come 
of it. Terror and dismay in hundreds of homes, 
broken and dispersed ; in free States men seized 
and by forms of law robbed of their hard-bought lib- 
erty ; righteous men fined and imprisoned ; Kansas 
usurpations, Senate outrages, Dred Scott decisions, 
Lecompton Constitutions, attempted revival of the 
slave trade, — these have come of it. And endless 
compromise and servility. But, thank God, not 
these alone. Resistance and rescues ; a great and 



158 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

noble uprising and flaming forth of the old spirit of 
liberty ; the setting aside of timid and compromis- 
ing and apologetic men ; protest and agitation that 
will not end till liberty is proclaimed through all the 
land. God's law was not broken then, though defied. 
His great purposes of freedom will be fulfilled, spite 
of partisans and priests. 

The reverence of the human soul not only places 
God above the earth, its denizens, and its destinies, 
but men of great reverence, lost in contemplation of 
his grandeur, majesty, and infinity, above the com- 
prehension of finite minds or the statement of finite 
lips, are in danger of supposing that a world like 
ours, and beings like ourselves, must needs be far 
beneath his interest. How can such a being give 
a moment's thought to a spot like this earth, and to 
concerns so petty as these human strifes, struggles, 
sorrows, and joys ? But the religious soul cries out 
with Paul, not only " above all," but "through 
all." God is not remote, but infinitely near. So 
long, indeed, as we think of Him as a separate 
individual being, then all that we add to our concep- 
tion of his greatness, loftiness, and majesty removes 
Him from us, and us from Him. Again, therefore, 
I must urge that we exchange this idea for a more 
spiritual one. Again I must declare that God is 
Spirit, and being Spirit, his infinity includes all 
things. He is above all, in that He is greater than 
all ; but He is greater than all, by including all that 
is less than He. He includes all, not even by being 
outside of all, as the circumference includes the 
circle; but He includes all by being " through all," 
even as the ocean includes every straw that floats 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 1 59 

upon its bosom, and is filled with its moisture ; even 
as the sunlight includes every atom that floats in its 
radiance and is pervaded with its heat. So, to com- 
pare spiritual things with material, the Infinite Spirit 
is above, beneath, around, and through all. 

We never can comprehend the omnipresence of 
God until we exchange the idea of the presence of 
all things to God for that of the presence of all 
things in God, and then of the presence of God in 
all things. No individual can be so present ; only 
Infinite Spirit. 

Experimental science discovers in nature no God ; 
for that science is concerned only with phenomena ; 
and there is no passage from the phenomenal to the 
real, from matter to spirit. Neither the senses nor 
the understanding, which are the organs of natural 
science, can bridge this chasm. Men seem to sup- 
pose that if they can refine matter enough, it will 
pass into spirit; but it is not so. Nature is a form 
of spirit, but not a degree of it. In the infancy of 
the race, the minds of men, unaccustomed to com- 
plicated chains of cause and effect, refer every un- 
usual or startling phenomenon directly to the agency 
of Deity or spirits. But as intellectual culture ad- 
vances, nature is explored, her secrets extorted, her 
effects arranged and made familiar ; mysteries dis- 
appear, and God is put farther and farther off. Then 
a philosophy arises, which says, " Do not be super- 
stitious ; God is not in the thunder and rain ; it is 
only electricity, oxygen, and hydrogen. God is not 
on earth ; He is in heaven, far away above the 
skies ; from thence He surveys and regulates this 
wonderful machinery which He created in six days, 



l6o THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

six thousand years ago. Mark the wonderful adap- 
tation, the curious contrivance ; none but a God 
could have made it. And a God governs it by his 
laws ; but He is not in it, any more than Watt is 
in the steam-engine he constructed, or Franklin in 
the printing-press he used. He only superintends 
it. Now and then only, in some emergency, He 
interposes specially and breaks his laws, that man 
may know that He exists and has made the laws. 
God is in the world only by his laws and by his 
occasional messengers. ' He is present among us 
only as a merchant of Boston is present in New 
Orleans by his agent.' Do not be superstitious ; 
God governs by second causes." 

Then another philosophy comes, and, reasoning 
more logically from the same premises, says : " How 
do you know, then, that there is a God at all ? 
Your world-machine is wonderful and curious, I 
allow ; but I see nothing Infinite in it. It is beauti- 
ful and elaborate, but I do not see the Perfect in it ; 
it gives us comfort, but it gives us pain ; it feeds 
us, but it starves us ; it warms us, but it freezes 
us ; we live, but we die, too. I do not see the All- 
Good. Hold to what you know and can see. Leave 
your theology, your metaphysics. Science stops 
with phenomena ; of causes, of forces, we can know 
nothing, — of first, or final, or efficient causes; our 
business is with facts, and their laws, which are 
only invariable relations of succession. Do not you 
be superstitious, but rest upon the firm ground of 
the positive." 

But we are not left to this alternative. We need 
not accept either the old theological, or metaphysi- 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT l6l 

cal, nor yet the new positive philosophy. There is 
another philosophy founded on the spiritual intui- 
tions of man, whose word Paul uttered when he 
said, " God, above all, and God, through all." The 
laws of nature, it declares, are but the uniform 
methods through which the forces of nature act ; 
the forces of nature are but one Force, one Power, 
— the Almighty God himself. He does not from 
a remote heaven superintend the movements of the 
world. He is not outside of it, but at its centre, 
moving through every atom and fibre of it. He is 
not a refined form of matter, but matter is a form 
of Him. He is not divided against himself, and 
therefore his constant, immanent forces appear in 
the form of law. Observation and reasoning will 
not find Him ; but the spiritual nature of man de- 
clares Him. The universe is not a machine which 
He once created, and retired to contemplate and 
superintend. He is always present in it, always 
creating it ; the Life of all life, the ever-present 
Cause of all motion. Creation has not ceased. 
God keeps no Sabbath. He did not rest on the 
seventh day, as Moses said ; but, as Jesus said, He 
is working until now. Yes, working at every point 
of his universe, unwearied, unresting, and unspent. 
And to-day, here in Brooklyn, the rose-tree in your 
window, the ivy on your wall, these flowers of your 
green-house, live, and leaf, and blossom by as im- 
mediate and direct an impulsion from God as that 
which caused the earth to bring forth its first blade 
of grass, or its first herb bearing seed. 

Again I must say, such a God as this can be only 
Spirit. No individual God could be so present 



1 62 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

through all ; only a Spirit everywhere, a present 
Love, a present Power, a present Mind. 

Soon will the spring be here ; and as we wander 
out to drink in the tender quickening influences 
we shall feel all around, above, and beneath, new 
life; swelling in the buds and down at the roots of 
the grass ; living in the air, sparkling in the waters 
of the bay, thrilling in our veins ; and that life will 
be the life of God. And when the summer months 
come, and we go and lie down beneath the shadow 
of the great hills, or in the aromatic air of the pine 
woods, we shall find the stillness filled with a breath- 
ing and palpitating life ; and that life will be the 
life of God. We shall see the landscape we look 
out upon to be not a painted surface, but an out- 
growth from the Spirit, — from that God " who out 
of his own beauty maketh all things fair." 

Oh, with what sacredness does this thought of 
" God, through all," invest the world ! We walk 
amidst miracle. Every spot is holy ground. The 
distinctions of sacred and profane disappear. No- 
thing is common or unclean. How noble ought 
our lives to be in such a world ! How religious our 
daily work ! For in that work, amid the materials 
and fabrics which supply the daily toil and activi- 
ties of men, we are working and dealing among 
materials and fabrics whose very atoms are held 
together by the present power of God. How sa- 
credly sincere and severely honest ought our work 
and our dealing to be ! 

And this thought shows us, also, that this is not 
a cursed and fallen world, but only an imperfect 
world. What seem its desolation and its ruins are 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 1 63 

but the Builder's rubbish and unplaced blocks. Its 
wildernesses have not been, but are to be, the gar- 
dens of the Lord. 

But are we to accept this more spiritual philoso- 
phy in regard to outward nature, and go no farther ? 
Can we possibly stop here ? Shall these mute, 
impercipient, material forms, subject to continual 
change and decay, be informed by the Spirit ; 
and shall we for a moment hesitate to believe and 
declare that God must much more dwell in his 
loftier work, his nobler manifestation, the human 
soul ? No ; but with reverent joy we utter Paul's 
concluding words, " and in you all." Yes, in us ; 
O friends ! poor, and weak, and unworthy as we are, 
yet in us, in these spiritual natures of ours, God 
can, and will, and does enter and dwell. Made in 
his image, to the world of spirits like ours it is given 
to be a perfecter manifestation and revelation of 
God than all the multitudinous forms of the lower 
universe can be. I know what metaphysicians may 
say about the absolute incommensurateness of the 
Finite and the Infinite. But I turn to the saints, 
and I hear their devout prayers speak of a conscious 
and most intimate union with God. I turn to the 
lofty souls who, through breathing numbers, or 
melodies, colors, marble, or words, have entranced 
the world, and I hear them declaring that in their 
higher creations they are overmastered by a power 
beyond their will. I turn to the reformers and the 
martyrs, and I hear them proclaim that the word 
they speak is not their own ; the strength by which 
they endure is not their own. I turn to the private 
experience of us all, and ask if we have not felt, 



164 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

whenever in our highest moments of thought, of 
duty, or of prayer, some great truth or principle, or 
energy, or peace, has flashed into our reason, quick- 
ened our conscience, moved our will, filled our hearts, 
— whether we have not always felt that it was no 
creation of our own, but rather something that has 
entered us, — within us, and yet from above us ? 

Now, from these facts of consciousness we are 
justified in declaring the spiritual nature to be a 
divine and supernatural element in the original con- 
stitution of the human soul. In the words of the 
old mystic, Tauler, " The eternal Word is as nigh to 
us inwardly as the very principle of our being ; so 
that not even man himself, his own thoughts, nor 
aught that can be named, or said, or understood, is 
so nigh, or planted so deep within him, as the eter- 
nal Word is in man." Planted there a germ, but it 
has eternity to develop in ; it remains but a germ 
for so many, for so long ; but in eternity is destined 
in every soul to grow out to its perfection. 

Through this spiritual nature man is child of God, 
the Father. As child of God he shares his nature, 
is of the same substance with Him, — "consubstan- 
tial," as the old theologians used to say, — is there- 
fore capable of being inspired by Him, of being 
possessed by Him, dwelt in by Him. It is not true 
that there is an impassable gulf between God and 
man, never bridged over but once in the world's his- 
tory. But the spiritual nature of man is, of itself, 
an inlet from God. His soul is, we may say, a little 
gulf, hemmed in with its limitations, its finiteness, 
all round. And we, on these waters of our soul, put 
forth our effort of thought and will, and in every 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 1 65 

direction we find ourselves stopped ; until at last we 
come to a space where they open out into the infi- 
nite ocean ; we burst through there, and are borne 
up and out upon its mighty tides. 

Of course, again, only a spiritual God, not any 
individual God, could ever thus enter in and be- 
come part of our souls. Our relation with God is 
in no sense mechanical, but purely vital. The truth 
which flashes on our reason, the justice which kin- 
dles in our conscience, the love which glows in our 
hearts, the energy which animates our wills, — these 
are the influxes of God into them. I might say 
the influx of God's Spirit ; but people think God's 
Spirit is something other than himself, some agent 
that passes between Him and us. I can see no 
difference between God's Spirit and God himself. 
Nor between man's spirit and man himself. And 
in our highest spiritual action the divine and the 
human are not distinguishable. 

" If we love one another, God dwelleth in us," 
said the Apostle. But it is equally true, that if we 
are just to one another, God dwelleth in us. Truth, 
justice, love, spiritual beauty, — these are, in their 
essence, God himself. And by so much as we have 
of essential truth, justice, love, spiritual beauty in 
our souls, so much we have of God. 

To certain forms of this influx, and in certain 
persons, it has been customary to apply the terms 
inspiration and revelation. The limitation, it seems 
to me, is entirely arbitrary. Wherever God's Spirit 
is, there is inspiration ; and wherever truth is opened 
to any mind, there is revelation. 

"In all ages, entering holy souls," Wisdom, the 



1 66 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

Divine Spirit, the eternal Word, has made them, 
and " makes them, Sons of God and prophets." 
Revelation, inspiration are perpetual ; for God is 
not dead, and cannot die, nor is He changed, nor 
can He change. "The spiritual consciousness of 
man is normally and forever the revelation of 
God." The differences are only in degree and 
direction, not in nature. As the light perpetually 
presses upon all objects, and seeks entrance every- 
where, and will come in at whatever window is open, 
— nay, if but a cranny or pin-hole be there, will 
come in as much as it will suffer, — so God's beauty, 
truth, right, power are continually pressing for en- 
trance into all souls in the universe, and as much 
enters each as it will allow. But as the light that 
enters is affected by the quality of the window it 
passes through, — whether that be white or colored, 
pure or crusted with dirt, — so is it with the light of 
God shining into human souls. It always partakes 
of the individual qualities of the men it comes 
through, and yet, all the while, the Truth is one as 
God is one. 

Thus inspiration is never an arbitrary thing. It 
strictly follows its law. Wherever the conditions are 
fulfilled, and in proportion as they are fulfilled, the 
inspiration follows. And these conditions, so far as 
they are in our power, are prayer and obedience, — 
seeking and using. " Aspiration ; conspiration ; in- 
spiration ! " Whenever, in trustful seeking, we, the 
humblest of us, open our souls toward God, his 
light, his power, his peace come to us. But more 
than that ; whenever we put forth the energy of rea- 
son, heart, and conscience, in the direction of God's 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT l6j 

purposes, seeking to do his will, then his will, his 
energy, his purpose flow into, and act through us. 
A true consecration is not a denial, a destroying of 
our wills, but a voluntary offering of our wills, with 
all their energy, for God to work through. And so, 
not only into devout praying, but into every simple 
act of honest living, God flows. 

Friends, this is thoroughly Christian doctrine. 
Jesus declared that it was the Father dwelling in 
him that did his works. It was literally true that 
God was in him, and no figure of speech whatever. 
In him we recognize a soul that by native purity 
and spirituality, and by voluntary consecration and 
obedience, was opened, unclogged and transparent 
to the inflowing and transmission of the Eternal 
Light. His spirit, quickened of God, was in turn 
a " quickening spirit " to the souls of men ; and is 
so still. In this way he was mediator, though not 
sole mediator; son of God, though not the only son 
of God. So he was a centre of spiritual forces, of 
eternal life, which, propagated from soul to soul of 
quickened men, and mingled with other influences, 
all mediatorial of the everlasting Spirit, have reached 
and enfold us. Thus he is head of the invisible, 
spiritual church of Christendom ; though he founded 
and organized no visible, institutional church. But 
his inspiration was not peculiar in its nature ; was 
special only in its degree and quality. It was not 
arbitrary, but came from obedience to conditions. 
"The Father hath not left me alone," he said, " be- 
cause I always do the things that please Him." But 
he refused to be worshiped, declaring that " there is 
none good but One, that is God." And he told his 



1 68 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

disciples that his Father was their Father, his God 
their God, who was ready to come and abide in them, 
if they loved and obeyed. He never claimed any 
nature other than theirs, other than ours ; any help 
to which they, and we, have not access. What was 
actual in him was possible to all souls, after their 
quality} He told his disciples that they should do 
"greater things" than he was doing. And they, 
their spiritual natures quickened by contact with his, 
saw, for the first time, what they were capable of, 
and in devout joy cried, " Behold, what manner of 
love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should 
be called sons of God " — " partakers of the divine 
nature" — "filled with all the fullness of God." 
Christianity, if it means anything, means this : the 
possibility of a vital, intimate union of God with the 
human soul. 

But it is true of the moral world, as of the outward 
world — the race is not fallen, but undeveloped. It 
is not in ruin, but in building. God is working in the 
one to imparadise it through human enterprise and 
through human hands. And in the other, through 
human faith and conscience and effort, to bring 
the perfect society, — the kingdom of heaven upon 
earth. For " the world shall be delivered from the 
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of 
the sons of God." And that it may be, it is only 
"waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God." 
Waiting for men who, through consecration and 
obedience, shall know and prove themselves to be 
such. 

1 " There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit," says Paul, 
i Cor. xii. 4. 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 1 69 

It is interesting to remark how every awakening 
of fresh religious life in the world has begun with 
the proclamation of this central, vital truth, the es- 
sence of all religion, — the proclamation of a living 
God, a present Spirit ; not a technical personage, 
supplicated to perform a narrow and technical work ; 
not a Holy Ghost, — a pale shadow and phantom of a 
God who once walked and talked with men, but has 
long since departed ; but a real presence, an eman- 
cipating, inspiring, working presence of God himself. 
Wherever this has died out of the faith of men, its 
place usurped by the tradition of a Spirit that has 
been, of a God " retired behind the veil of his works," 
of inspiration foreclosed and prophecy shut up in a 
book ; then, when worship has become routine, and 
life profane and irreligious, some new prophet has 
been stirred to utter anew the old eternal word, 
God is ; God lives ; now, here, within you, He 
moves, He speaks ; to-day if ye will hear his voice ! 
So the Wesleys spoke to men's hearts of a present 
salvation, and sang of " Him who dwells within." So 
George Fox turned from the smouldering altars and 
empty lanterns of an established and petrified church, 
and laid as a living coal upon men's hearts the truth 
of the Inner Light. And so every great movement 
of moral reform begins with the proclamation of 
God's law written in the conscience and of a present 
judgment. 

And to-day, friends, if we would have life in our 
churches, if we would stay this flood of material- 
ism, this demoralizing prevalence of dishonesty and 
compromise, and kindle anew the dying flame of 
faith in human rights, we must preach, first and last, 



170 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

the Holy Spirit that is, the Living God, who has 
to do with the affairs of men as intimately now and 
in this as in any past age or land ; whose word our 
highest thought is ; whose will is found in our high- 
est sentiment of right, which we must not dare to 
disobey ; a God whom we must not attempt to leave 
out of anything that we do ; who is infinitely near, to 
inspire, to redeem, and judge us now; from whose 
presence we cannot go, for that presence is in us 
and in all ; the central, pervading, and encompass- 
ing Force — yes, and the embosoming Love, the 
inworking Justice — condemning and bringing to 
naught all that is not of his Spirit and after his 
law ; saving, establishing, giving victory and eternal 
life now to whatever is his own. 

And without faith in just this, as no figure of 
speech, as no fanaticism, but as a reality, a healthy, 
natural, experienced reality, there can be no vital 
religion. So long as it is doubted and denied ; so 
long, and in so far as, it is not preached, and heard, 
that there is a Holy Spirit here and now, who is 
nothing less than God himself, — so long will there 
be dearth in our churches, dishonesty and selfishness 
in our trade, corruption in our politics, injustice and 
inhumanity in our legislation. Our prosperity will 
be hollow and rotten, our nation doomed. 

O friends ! what a possibility does this thought of 
God " in us all " open before our minds. Confronted 
with that possibility, how do our actual lives stand 
humbled, rebuked, and ashamed ! We might be 
God's true, faithful, inspired sons ; pure, unselfish, 
tranquil, and courageous ; and we are — Let con- 
science fill the blank ! 



THE DOCTRINE OE THE SPIRIT Ijl 

Yet, let us hold fast to the faith in this possibility, 
as ours still, fall as often and as much below it as we 
may. Not by despairing of himself, but by coming 
to himself, the prodigal son returned to his father's 
arms. 

Thus I have tried to speak to you of the " God 
and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, 
and in you all." But truly I feel, with Tauler, that 
"these things are so sublime and glorious that it is 
better to seek to experience them than to speak 
thereof." 

I will only say, if such be our tJieology, let us not 
rest until it has become our religion ; if such be our 
idea, let us not rest until it has become our con- 
sciousness ; until we know, by personal experience, 
that we are counseled by God, taught of Him, re- 
deemed by Him, filled with his unspeakable peace, 
and made strong to do his will. In those moments 
of anguish and sorrow that come into the lives of 
all.; in those far more terrible moments of sin, 
which may come to all, even to the truly good man, 
who has yet left one unguarded spot ; in those 
moments of duty when the way seems difficult to 
find, how great a thing to feel that we have God 
infinitely near to us, in whom we may find the deep- 
est and most perfect consolation, redemption, and 
guidance. In your hours of work and daily business, 
how great a thing to feel that the holy God is really 
present in your counting-room, in your workshop, 
in your caucus, in your legislative halls ; that through 
human souls, who obey Him, and over those who do 
not obey Him, He is yet ruling with unbroken law, 
which is his unbroken presence. He reigns ; in 



172 THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT 

nations and communities, in governments and in 
households. So that nothing can be done in either 
that is unjust, dishonest, false, selfish, or oppressive, 
but is at the moment, by that presence of God, 
judged, and condemned, and doomed to destruction. 
So that nothing can be done in either that is right- 
eous, honest, true, unselfish, but what it is taken up 
into his purpose, approved, saved, and made im- 
mortal. So that no evil thing is success, and no 
good thing is failure, seem things as they may. 

Brooklyn, March 2, 1858, at the dedication of the new church. 



PARTING WORDS 

At the end of seven years thou shalt make a release. — Deuter- 
onomy XV. I. 

Seven years ago, dear friends, it was that I came 
among you ; at first, for a few months' ministry. 
Then you asked me to stay with you, and, not with- 
out many doubts, yet also not without many hopes, 
I remained. And to-day this ministry closes. I came 
to preach in perfect freedom the truth which makes 
us free, so far as it should be revealed to my sight 
and convictions. I came, as you will remember, 
declaring myself the representative of no sect or 
denomination, for I wished none to feel responsible 
for me ; advocate of no established and named sys- 
tem of doctrine, for I wished freely to inquire with 
you, and without trammels to speak to you. I have 
preached in honesty, not holding back any clear 
conviction, whether likely or not to agree with your 
own or others. I have respected your freedom, as 
well as claimed my own, which you have always 
respected. I have not sought to impose my views 
of truth upon you, but have always urged you to 
judge and decide for yourselves ; glad when you 
frankly told me that you differed from me ; more 
glad, of course, if you came to views agreeing with 
mine ; cheered by the frequent and cordial response 
of many to truths which were dear to me. 

The one great central truth which I have in all 



174 PARTING WORDS 

ways and relations tried to urge upon you has been 
the intimate nearness of the Living God, the Uni- 
versal Spirit. I have found that my preaching, be- 
ginning from this, would perpetually come back to 
it. Whatever topic of thought or life I would unfold, 
this was found lying at the heart of it. Was it some 
truth, his being was the ground of it. Was it some 
duty, his will was the obligation and the power of 
it. Was it some trial, it was his opportunity ; some 
grief, it was the opening into his peace. Was it 
life, it was to walk in communion and service with 
Him ; was it death, it was to go on with Him to 
communion and service beyond. This great thought 
seemed thus to radiate into every direction and path 
of life, and all paths led back to it. 

Thus it has been the centre of my preaching, — 
the thought and name of God. Others would put 
Christ there. I could not put him there, for I found 
there always a greater than he. 

So I have believed in and taught a God who is the 
Infinite Spirit. Not a Mighty Being, in magnified 
and majestic human shape, remote beyond his uni- 
verse, whose omnipresence means nothing more 
than the presence of all things to his view ; but the 
Spirit, the essential, indwelling, and all-penetrating 
Life, the environing Law, the embosoming Love. 
I have not taught a Creator, who once created the 
world in six days, and then leaving it, retired to 
superintend from afar its ongoing ; but the Spirit, 
who each day, out of his own thought, right, beauty, 
power, creates and recreates, by his permanent in- 
flux, the fair and noble forms of that creation whose 
days are yet going on from present imperfection to 



PARTING WORDS 1 75 

decreed completeness ; till every spot in this our 
world, and in all worlds, shall be redeemed into the 
garden of the Lord. 

I have not taught a God who governs the world 
by general regulations, but One whose laws in nature 
are but the immediate presence of his Power, mov- 
ing all things in unbroken Order, — the harmonious 
methods of the operation of the Spirit. I have not 
taught a God who governs man by statutes, arbitrary 
commandments, but One whose moral laws are the 
very conditions of man's being, the perpetual pres- 
ence of the Infinite Righteousness, the simple con- 
ditions of moral order. I have not taught a Sovereign, 
whose arbitrary decree makes right and wrong, and 
affixes the reward and penalty, reigning for his own 
glory ; but a Father who rules by the supremacy of 
his infinite justice and love, which are the very 
essence of his being, and who lives to give himself 
forth in blessing through his universe. I have not 
taught a Judge, who, on some set day at the end of 
the world, will summon and sentence the race, but 
One whose omnipresent Spirit of justice and love, 
at every moment, judges every thought and act, 
dooms the evil and saves and makes immortal the 
good. I have not taught a Providence which over- 
sees, in a general way, the fate of men, or occasion- 
ally interferes, specially to save or destroy ; but a 
perpetual and universal Will to good ; which, allow- 
ing between its lines a space for man's free agency, 
yet, unthwarted, undisturbed by the willfulnesses, 
the ignorances, the improvidences of that human 
freedom, is everywhere present, with supreme 
power, to weave them all into the large and final 



176 PARTING WORDS 

good of all and of each. I have not taught a God 
who, at only one point of the world's life, has de- 
scended to mingle in human affairs, and manifest 
himself to the world among a single people, in one 
small corner of the earth, and for a few brief years, 
incarnated in one only Son ; but I have taught One 
who, from the first until now, has been manifested, 
revealed, — incarnated, if you will, — in man, his 
child; "in all ages entering holy souls;" perpetu- 
ally inspiring and working in the reason, the con- 
science, the heart, the will of the race ; of whom, 
from the first and in brightening degree, man's 
reason, conscience, love, and will have been the 
image ; of whom every man is son and representa- 
tive in proportion to the fullness of his spiritual 
life, to the completeness of his consecration and 
obedience. 

It is in contemplations like these that we feel our 
high and pure possibility. It is in such thoughts 
and feelings that we are conscious of a spiritual 
being akin to God, — conscious of our sonship to the 
Father. Thus quickened and " led by his Spirit," 
we know ourselves "sons of God," and cry : "What 
manner of love hath the Father bestowed on us, that 
we should be children of God ? " 

As child of God, I have always spoken to you of 
man ; through all his weakness and wandering, still 
God's child. I have declared him to be this, not by 
conversion, but by birth, since every man has in 
him by his native constitution this spiritual being, 
which exalts him, by virtue of his nature, above a 
creature, into a son, of God. This spiritual being, 
with all its divine capacities, may long lie latent, in 



PARTING WORDS 1 77 

most men is feebly developed ; it has eternity to 
grow in, but it can never perish out of a man, since 
it is the essence of his humanity. In proportion to 
its fullness does he become a true man ; conscious 
son of God ; channel of divine influences to the 
world. This spiritual being in man is the inlet 
between God and man ; the channel of inspiration 
and revelation ; the sphere of religion. The great 
ideas and powers of truth, justice, beauty, love are 
here revealed ; and they in man are the very pres- 
ence of God in him. As they come to life in him, 
he is born into eternal life. The Spirit, which be- 
fore was above him, and around him, now flows 
through him, too, and is indwelling God. So much 
as a man has of truth, justice, beauty, love, living in 
him, so much he has of God ; so much he has of 
religion, which is the conscious union of the human 
spirit with the Divine, — the consciousness of God in 
man. The religious man, therefore, is the inspired 
man ; and the response of his spirit is the evidence 
and authentication of all teachings that claim to be 
inspired. 

Believing in this birthright possibility in man, 
and distinguishing between human nature and human 
character, I have taught the nobleness and goodness 
of human nature. Its every faculty, its every pro- 
pensity, I count good in itself, and productive of 
good in its right exercise. The evil results which 
are found in human character come from the excess, 
deficiency, or perversion of some faculty or passion ; 
from the want of right and harmonious exercise. 

What we call evil passions, then, such as anger, 
lust, selfishness, are not positive existences in the 



1 78 PARTING WORDS 

soul, to be rooted out and cast away. They are the 
uncontrolled or ill-directed exercise of that which in 
itself was intended for good. By direct self-govern- 
ment, by the doing of good, and by the reception of 
holy influences, human and divine, is the character 
to be moulded into the true stature of human nature. 

" So build we up the being that we are, 
Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things." 

So we work out our own salvation, while in answer 
to our effort God worketh in us. For we cannot put 
forth our will to good, but immediately by the divine 
law his will to good begins to flow and act through 
ours. 

I have, of course, never taught the doctrine of the 
total depravity and the fallen and disabled condi- 
tion of man by nature. Neither have I taught the 
doctrine, common in the Unitarian Church, of the 
absolute and unsullied purity of man by birth. We 
cannot fail to see, if we look, that evil tendencies — 
tendencies to excess, tendencies to perversion — 
are inherited from generation to generation, a kind 
of moral disease. The existence of this transmitted 
evil' is a matter of solemn practical significance. 
The parent's responsibility for the child begins before 
birth, back in the parent's character. But it is not 
sin that is inherited, nor does it involve guilt in the 
inheritor, although it may make the work of self- 
discipline and virtue a difficult and, in some cases, 
a desperate struggle. But then we must remember 
the other and encouraging truth, that the good is 
transmitted, is inherited, as well as the evil. So, if 
from the first sin disease has been inherited, the 



PARTING WORDS 1 79 

remedy has been from the first handed down with it. 
Sin and redemption have gone hand in hand. The 
evil which has been from man has forever been 
resisted by the righteousness which has been of 
God and man. And as the righteousness is of God, 
it is mightier than the evil which is of man, and will 
surely conquer it. The evil will be utterly consumed 
in the ongoing progress of the individual and the 
race. And this being a spiritual, that is, an eternal 
law, will extend beyond this life through all the 
future, till no evil remain, but God, or Good, be all 
and in all. I do not believe, then, in a Fall of man 
through one man alone, and a Redemption of man 
through one man alone. But I believe in many fall- 
ings of men, and in many Redeemers, all channels 
of the divine love of Him who is alone the One 
sufficient Saviour. 

I have ever spoken to you of Jesus of Nazareth as 
a noble instance of true spiritual manhood. A man, 
born as all men are, and with no other nature than 
all men have ; yet born, doubtless, from the holy 
spirit of a pure and religious mother, born into the 
great religious ideas and hopes which his nation 
inherited, even though they had grown so faithless 
of them, he achieved out of these native endow- 
ments, by consecration and obedience, a character 
of noble and sacred proportions. By putting away 
self-seeking he received the indwelling of God, 
preached righteousness to his nation, which he 
strove in vain to save and morally emancipate, and 
died a martyr to the truth. We have no words of 
his own writing. The fragmentary memoirs of his 
life and teachings, written down from memory and 



180 PARTING WORPS 

report after an interval of years, contain many 
mythological elements, the growth of reverence and 
of the prevalent ideas about the Messiah, whom his 
disciples erroneously believed him to be, even 
expecting his return in their own lifetime. These 
histories, tinged with Jewish beliefs, are all we have ; 
nor can we be sure, therefore, that we have in any 
case the exact words of Jesus. We must believe, 
however, that behind this record was a high and 
holy life, were high and holy teachings, and the 
highest and most spiritual words we may believe to 
have been most surely his. So that enough remains 
to be thankful for, even if we should sometimes be 
glad if there were more. I, of course, have never 
taught the system which places the essential work 
of Jesus in the world to have been centred in his 
official, sacrificial, atoning death ; that he came by 
that death upon the cross to exhibit the wrath of 
God against sin, to make an infinite satisfaction for 
the infinite evil of sin, to bear the penalty of sin, to 
make it possible (that is, to make it just and merci- 
ful) for God to forgive sin, and so to reconcile God 
to man, and restore the fallen human race. 

In opposition to this theory, I have taught that 
God is love, not wrath ; that the sin of a finite being 
cannot be an infinite evil ; that the death of a finite 
body cannot be an infinite satisfaction ; that it is 
neither just nor merciful to inflict upon the innocent 
the punishment due to the guilty ; that the retribu- 
tions of sin are mainly interior, and cannot possibly 
be experienced by a holy being ; are personal, and 
in the nature of things cannot be transferred ; that 
it was already, and is always, possible for God to 



PARTING WORDS l8l 

forgive his children's sin upon their repentance and 
reformation ; finally, that there is no proof that the 
"race" was "fallen" through a federal Adam, and 
so needed to be restored through a federal Christ, — 
it being more probable, as I have said, that the race 
has been, from the first, like the outward creation, 
imperfect, but advancing towards perfection. 

Nor have I taught, what is a more prevalent 
theory among Unitarians, that the great and peculiar 
mission of Jesus was to reveal to the world certain 
religious truths and certain moral rules, of which 
the world was, to that time, ignorant. The Father- 
hood of God ; his essential love and readiness to 
forgive sin ; the immortality of the human soul ; the 
retribution and rewards of the future life ; the bro- 
therhood of man ; the forgiveness of enemies and 
the love of the neighbor ; to reveal these before 
unknown truths and rules of conduct is believed to 
have been God's design and Christ's work. 

But it does not appear that they were before un- 
known. God is called Father in the Old Testament 
at least twice ; the idea was not unfamiliar to the 
Greek and Roman religions ; Paul quotes from a 
Greek poet the statement of man's sonship. That 
God is love is the declaration of John, not Jesus. 
The forgiveness of sins is part of every "pagan" 
religion. The immortality of the human soul is a 
universal faith ; is far more distinctly declared by 
Plato than in any recorded words of Jesus, and is 
accompanied in all religions with the idea of retribu- 
tion and reward. The modern doctrine of the bro- 
therhood of man is nowhere stated in terms by Jesus ; 
is more distinctly declared by Paul. " If thine 



1 82 PARTING WORDS 

enemy hunger, feed him," and " Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself," are both in the Old Testament, 
and the forgiveness of foes is taught in the Oriental 
religions ; while many of the moral precepts of Jesus 
can be paralleled in the writings of Jewish and hea- 
then philosophers. The very manner in which Jesus 
enunciated his religious truths and moral precepts 
indicates that he was not announcing them for the 
first time to a world as yet ignorant. I do not 
mean, of course, to say, that Jesus did not preach 
the great truths of religion ; nor do I say that he 
borrowed them of others. He saw, with original 
sight, the everlasting stars of truth, which are 
before the eyes of all pure up-looking men in the 
great spiritual firmament. And we have received 
our knowledge of many of these truths first from 
him ; but other men from other teachers. 

Nor have I taught, as is sometimes said, that 
Jesus came or was sent, not so much to teach truths, 
as to set to men the example of a true life ; that his 
teaching was his life. But if by his life be meant 
his actions, the incidents of his biography ; if by 
example be meant deeds done that men might im- 
itate them, — and this is the usual acceptation of the 
terms, — then we cannot receive this as the true 
theory of the work of Jesus. For nothing is more 
plain than that his example covers but a very small 
part of the occupations of our life. Scarce ten men 
in a generation are placed in circumstances to de- 
mand of them to follow literally the steps of Jesus, 
and imitate his actions. For the rest he has set no 
copy. Besides, had Jesus lived with this idea, it 
would have taken all spontaneousness and reality 



PARTING WORDS 1 83 

from his life. Moreover, an imitated virtue is of 
comparatively little worth. 

If then the special " mission " and " saving work " 
of Jesus be neither as teacher, exemplar, or sacrifice, 
in the sense commonly taught, what theory remains ? 

I have taught that the essential work of Jesus 
was not indoctrination nor exemplification, but in- 
spiration. He was, to those among whom he lived, 
and through them to the world, a " quickening 
spirit." From his fullness of life, he animated and 
vitalized men's spiritual and moral natures. He 
was a centre of spiritual force which flowed out, 
under the law of influence, and saved, redeemed, 
gave eternal life to as many as drew near to him, 
seeking and willing. As the sun enters into the 
oak-leaf, the violet, and calls out their life forces, so 
the virtue that went out from him entered into their 
souls, and new forces sprung into life within them. 
All that was highest, purest, truest, divinest in them 
was called out; new and nobler aims sprung up; 
sins fell off ; evil habits loosed their chains ; evil 
tempers were stilled ; all holiness seemed possible, 
all sacrifices easy ; God seemed very near, and all 
men dear. Of this spiritual force we are inheritors, 
through the law of transmission, being born into it 
as it has been propagated, in widening circles, from 
generation to generation of living souls. 

Further, when, as we read the record of his life 
and his image rises before our imagination, our 
hearts burn within us in heavenly desires, and our 
consciences are stirred with nobler motives, and our 
wills nerved to more generous striving — then a more 
direct regenerating power is exerted upon us. 



1 84 PARTING WORDS 

Further, as Jesus still lives in the spiritual world, 
and still loves the race among whom he lived, yearn- 
ing to save them, we believe that all who are in 
affinity of affection and purpose with him do, in 
accordance with the spiritual law of that affinity, 
receive of his spirit. 

It was his interior life, his soul's life, which Jesus 
gave to the world. And this life, as we believe, 
was not of the merely mild, passive quality, which 
has often been supposed, but was full of energy. 
His piety and his humanity were charged with vital- 
ity. He died a martyr's death; not passively but 
actively accepting it. It was the crown of his 
consecration ; the final and triumphant test of the 
complete surrender of his will to God's. And so 
life went forth from that too. 

Such, we believe, was and is the work of Jesus. 
Not so much to tell men truths as to awaken their 
spiritual vision to see the truth for themselves ; not 
so much to lay down rules of moral conduct as to 
quicken the inner sentiment of right and duty ; not 
so much to set the copy of a divine life as to give 
the motive impulse which shall urge men to do 
their work as faithfully, as devoutly, as self-forget- 
fully as he did his. 

By so much as you remove Jesus from humanity, 
in your thought, by just so much you remove him 
from men's comprehension, and so from their needs. 
But call him Man, and in that name include that 
indwelling of God which is the native privilege of 
spiritual humanity, and you speak plainly the truth 
which the creeds have been stammering, and throw 
clear light upon the nature and destiny of all men. 



PARTING WORDS 1 85 

Say that Jesus was God manifest, incarnate Deity, 
if you will ; but do not fail to believe that every 
consecrated, obedient, illuminated son of man is, in 
precisely the same sense, in however different de- 
gree, the same. " Whosoever is led by the Spirit of 
God, the same is son of God." " God who is above 
all and in you all" How strange that men should, 
through all the years, have been reading and repeat- 
ing these words, and never yet believed them ! 

But if we fall to worshiping Jesus, he still says, 
Why callest thou me good ? it is not I, but the Fa- 
ther ; and sends us to the Sun whence he drew light, 
to the Fountain whence he drank. He lifts men up, 
and leads them to God ; but he does not stay, as 
some teach, perpetually between them and Him, sole 
and permanent channel of the Divine Spirit. But, 
having placed their hand in the Father's, he goes to 
seek and bring other wanderers home, and leaves 
them to gaze, without veil, into the Father's face, 
and hear, without mediator, his Word. 

How grand and inspiring are the thoughts these 
views of men suggest to us for ourselves and for 
others! These seem to me doctrines whose truth 
ought to make us free. 

With such views of man and of God, and of their 
intimate relation, my views of life have been cheer- 
ful and sacred. I have ever urged upon you this 
sanctity of life in its small as well as its great occa- 
sions, in its work and its play as well as in its prayer 
and its sorrow. This world becomes thus one man- 
sion of our Father's house, full of his beauty and his 
presence, our childhood's home ; and not an exile, a 
prison, a hospital, a vale of tears, and journey to the 



1 86 PARTING WORDS 

tomb ; not even a mere probation and preparation 
for another world. Life, a noble opportunity for 
spiritual and manly growth, and the doing of good ; 
heaven and its angels close to us, if we will see and 
hear ; and death but the passing on in the unbroken 
continuity of our being into a life beyond, whither 
we carry all of ourselves unchanged into fresh op- 
portunities and fresh influences. That the life 
beyond is the simple continuation of the inward life 
here, I have felt a growing conviction ; the same 
essential character, the same spiritual laws, the 
same Man and the same God. But I have had 
more to say to you of the present life than of the 
future, deeming it now of more importance. 

There is another point of doctrinal teaching which 
ought not to be passed over, and which I now dwell 
upon at more length, because it is about to be a prom- 
inent point of discussion. I mean the doctrine of 
our religious books. The Bible, in the Protestant 
church, holds a very remarkable position. Sepa- 
rated from all other books ; believed to be not the 
product of the human reason or religious senti- 
ment, but a miraculous dictation of the Holy Spirit, 
it is asserted to be God's only and infallible Word, 
it is called the perfect rule of faith and practice. 
To question any statement in it is to be an infidel. 
To prove any doctrine, a clear text from any part of 
it is counted all-sufficient. All sects agree to refer 
their disputes to it as a final arbiter. It is true 
that there is a modified view, which regards the Bible 
as being a book intended not to teach science and 
history, but morals and religion ; and as, therefore, 
fallible in what it teaches of the former, but infalli- 



PARTING WORDS 1 87 

ble, or virtually so, in what it teaches of the latter. 
It is counted liberal to say the Bible is our only 
creed. Its religious teachings are called revelation 
and inspiration, while all other religious teachings 
are called the results of unassisted human reason. 
In the liberal churches hymns are sung in honor of 
the Bible. It is given to the newly-ordained minis- 
ter, with the charge that he preach it, and nothing 
which is not in it. 

This is the Protestant idolatry, — this worship of 
a book, and of its letter. I must call it a supersti- 
tion, for it is an unintelligent reverence. It is on a 
par with the equally sincere worship of shrines and 
images in the Roman Catholic Church. I have not 
failed to tell you that the doctrine of the infallibility 
of the Bible will not stand a moment's open-eyed 
examination. The book does not claim to be an in- 
fallible and equally-inspired book, written by the 
finger of God, or at the dictation of the Holy Ghost ; 
and if it did, of course the claim would not be proof '. 
Secondly, the Bible is not a book, but a collection 
of books ; of various and uncertain authorship, of 
various and uncertain date, of various and often con- 
tradictory teaching. There is no proof that these 
writings are other than human writings. The hu- 
man mind is amply capable of writing all they con- 
tain, with its observation, judgment, and memory, 
with its moral sense and its spiritual perception and 
openness to inspiration. The truths of science, of 
history, which these writings contain, are certainly 
within reach of human investigation. Their errors 
in science, their contradictions and discrepancies in 
history, are surely human. The morality is not uni- 



1 88 PARTING WORDS 

form, is not always of the highest ; often actions are 
recorded with approval that shock our better sense. 
These mark the imperfect perception of an earlier 
age, but surely they cannot be the rule of a more 
advanced one. We cannot go to the Bible as to an 
absolutely authoritative source of truth and light. 
But it does not follow that, believing this, we are 
bound to " take the Bible out of our pulpit and our- 
selves with it." We do not reject the Bible because 
we do not accept it as a sacred whole, but discrimi- 
nate among its varied contents, and refuse to bow 
reason and conscience before it. We do not reject 
it ; for though all I have said is true, yet there is 
more in the Bible than I have said. It contains pas- 
sages of loftiest and truest inspiration ; divinest sen- 
tences of truth, sublimest morality, tenderest piety ; 
most earnest faith, most quickening proclamations 
of the divine Law, most touching declarations of the 
divine Lover Rich beyond all books is it in these. 
And we have in ourselves the faculties which can 
distinguish the inspired from the uninspired parts, 
the truth from the error, namely, that spiritual rea- 
son, conscience, and heart in us which are the 
ground and the test of the true, the right, and the 
good, and whose affirmations are to every man 
authoritative. That which divinely inspires us, we 
know by that sign to be itself divinely inspired. 
For the spiritual man judges all things. These 
things I have been accustomed to tell you of the 
Bible ; asking you to use it intelligently, and not 
superstitiously ; to test its statements in your high- 
est reason, conscience, and heart ; and to obey with 
fidelity those sacred laws and truths which your 
spirit found recorded and enforced in its pages. 



PARTING WORDS 1 89 

Such are the leading ideas, which, for these seven 
years, I have been teaching here. These truths I 
have preached to you because I counted them — 
and still count them — God's truths, saving truths, 
vital truths, truths that shall make you free. These 
truths I have preached honestly and with freedom. 
And you have been willing to hear them, though 
you could not, all of you, always accept them. I 
commend them anew to you, and beseech you, so 
far as they commend themselves to you as true, to 
cherish them, and to stand by them, and bear wit- 
ness to them here. Above all, I entreat you, cher- 
ish and stand by the largest, the most entire free- 
dom of thinking and speaking in theology ; cherish 
it as the only avenue to the truth. See that you 
stand fast in your liberty, and be not entangled 
again in any yoke of bondage. See that you never 
incur the reproach that " the pilgrims of liberty 
have become its oppressors." Sad indeed is it to 
see a "liberal" Christian repeating the very wrong 
he has complained of in the " orthodox," and deny- 
ing the Christian name to those who do not believe 
about Jesus as he does. 

These truths, I say, I have taught here during 
my ministry with increasing clearness of conviction. 
But, as a teacher of religion, I have not confined 
myeelf to teaching truths. For religion is not truth 
alone, but also piety and righteousness. God, the 
conscious union with whom is religion, comes as 
truth to the reason ; but He comes as love and rev- 
erence to the heart ; as right to the conscience and 
the will. 

I have, therefore, as a teacher of religion, sought 



I90 PARTING WORDS 

continually to quicken in you the spiritual sentiment 
of piety ; the inward, tender feeling of trust and of 
devoutness ; the perpetual sense of God's intimate 
presence not as a speculative truth, but as a felt 
experience. I have sought to nurture in you the 
spirit of prayer, of communion with the Infinite 
Spirit, our Father, that you might know the joy, the 
peace, and the power of piety ; till it should shed 
its serenity through the distractions of your life, 
and its energy through your work, and its cheerful- 
ness through your sorrows. I have longed that you 
should know these things, not as a belief only, but 
as a living and victorious faith. 

And I have always urged upon you righteousness 
as an essential part of religion. I have wished you 
to feel the insufficiency of the devoutness which 
was not an inspiration to right-doing. I have urged 
you to enthrone conscience, and feel the sacred 
obligation of duty, and the supremacy of the divine 
law, as revealed within you ; I have urged honesty, 
integrity, veracity, as a part of your religion ; and 
pressed the claim of a high moral standard amid 
the demoralizations of this exciting life. And not 
only private morality, but the claims of society, that 
you should add to its justice, and help its humanity, 
and aid its reformations ; till that kingdom of heaven 
be come, wherein their rights shall be given to man, 
to woman, to child ; to the poor, the tempted, the 
criminal. 

And I have not failed to urge upon you the claims 
of national righteousness, without which no people 
can be free, can be strong, can be truly prosperous. 
Against the great immorality of our nation, its 



PARTING WORDS igi 

great disobedience to the divine law, Slavery. I have 
not failed to utter my protest. I have urged upon 
you the critical character of this question among 
us ; how the liberties and moral life of our land are 
involved in it ; yes, and the personal manhood of 
every one of us. Of its barbarism and its despot- 
ism, I have not failed to speak ; of its frequent and 
frightful cruelties, and its essential and perpetual 
injustice ; that I might engage your heart and your 
conscience to work for the righting of this great 
wrong, the removal of which would ennoble and 
aggrandize every part of our country, and let it 
breathe its first full, free breath. Of the duty of 
the pulpit in this regard, I have never felt a mo- 
ment's doubt ; but with me it has been a desire and 
a privilege, even more than a duty, to speak what 
was filling my heart and conscience. Nor have I 
ever seen what right politics in the pews, and com- 
merce in the pews, could claim to silence the pro- 
clamation of national righteousness in the pulpit. 
Some of you have not been able to sympathize with 
all I have said on this theme ; and some that were 
with us have, in the exercise of their unquestioned 
liberty, gone away from the hearing of this word. 
I would rather they had stayed and been converted. 
But I wish to say to-day that you have fully re- 
spected the freedom of this pulpit ; that, through 
all, no persuasion nor inducement has been ad- 
dressed to me to do anything else than preach my 
full conviction of this matter. I am glad and you 
are glad to-day that I can say this. 

Seven years ago, in my first sermon after my in- 
stallation, I gave you my idea of a church as " a 



I92 PARTING WORDS 

society of men and women and children, united by 
a religious spirit for a religious work." And I 
sketched an outline of the work of a church, such 
as I hoped we should gradually build up here. That 
it should not have been completely filled up is not 
strange. But we have done something in nearly all 
the directions then indicated ; and I trust you are 
to do yet more. By our religious worship, enriched 
with every helpful aid of devotion ; by our social 
meetings ; by our meeting for conversation ; by our 
Sunday-school ; by our monthly contributions to 
benevolent objects ; by our printing, or helping 
others to print tracts ; by our cultivation of religious 
music as a handmaid to devotion, we have at least 
made a commencement of good works. 

And now I commend this church, and all these 
its ministries, to your keeping. Remember that 
you, and not I, are the church. Cherish it for your 
sake and its own ; above all, for the sake of the 
truth, freedom, righteousness it may serve. To you 
I commit their charge and service in this place. 
Accept it as a sacred charge, and be faithful. Feel 
the added call there is now upon you who remain 
to keep and inspire life in every department. Rise 
far above persons into the love of ideas and princi- 
ples. This church has already come to be regarded 
as representative of the new thought and life of the 
times, and many eyes look to it, especially among 
the young. Accept, and be true to the responsi- 
bility, " not in my presence only, but much more in 
my absence." I go, but the truth remains. Duty 
remains. God, the great Friend, Helper, Teacher, 
Inspirer, remains. " Work out your own salvation 



PARTING WORDS 1 93 

with awe, for that which worketh in you is God." 
Again I say, stand fast in the liberty with which you 
have been made free, and be not entangled, I beseech 
you, in any yoke of bondage. Do not fear discour- 
agements, — we have passed safely through too 
many. Do not sacrifice to any desire of immediate 
popularity, — I hope we have all long ago left that 
desire behind. 

To you, young men and young women, I would 
say one word. Keep your minds and hearts open 
to the new thought and life of our time. Your age 
and your country call upon you to be true to their 
great ideas, and gladly lend yourselves to the carry- 
ing on of the great works of justice and humanity, 
which are set to our time. Ennoble yourselves by 
devotion to the truth and the right, and by making 
sacrifices for them. Let every good cause find in 
you willing helpers. 

And you, children, so soon to be young men and 
young women, you whom I have loved : love now, 
and love always, the things that are good and true, 
just, honest, and lovely. Thus you will love God, 
who loves you, more than I or any man can. Feel 
early that you are in the world, as we all are, to do 
some good, to make some one happier and better. 

And now we have come to the parting of the ways. 
I offer to you again the hand I held out to you seven 
years ago, and with its warm pressure I ask God's 
blessing to be with you. With you here, as often as 
you shall meet for prayer and thought. With you 
amid the exposures, and temptations, and opportuni- 
ties of your daily work. With you in the homes 
where, for seven years, I have come and gone in 



194 PARTING WORDS 

simple friendship ; those homes, where I have laid my 
hand in blessing on your little children, spoken words 
of cheer to the sick and dying, opened the fountains 
of consolation to the lonely and bereaved. These 
inward influences abide forever in the heart that 
cherishes them. They, the better part of me, remain 
with you, though the outward goes away. And I 
bear with me, not only your good wishes, but all that 
these seven years of intercourse have wrought into 
my inmost life. This thought of what abides must 
lift us far above whatever in this hour speaks 
of change and loss. And intercourse, even, is not to 
be broken ; we shall hear and know of each other 
across the seas and lands. Do not doubt that, what- 
ever may happen I shall cherish, a warm interest in 
your welfare. Why, then, should we not part cheer- 
fully, while I bid you an affectionate farewell, and 
you wish me a pleasant journey and a safe return ? 

Brooklyn, June 24, i860, on withdrawing from the pastorate. 

The following note was prefixed to this sermon when published : — 

This sermon was, of necessity, written in haste. But the views it 
contains are not hastily adopted. By the like necessity, it has been 
printed without the author's revision even of the proofs. I leave it 
with my congregation as a substitute, in part, for a volume which 
they had asked for. And perhaps other inquirers maybe helped by 
its statements. 

Brooklyn, June 29, i860. 



SERMON 

AT THE DEDICATION OF THE "PARKER MEMORIAL," THE 
MEETING-HOUSE OF THE TWENTY - EIGHTH CONGREGA- 
TIONAL SOCIETY OF BOSTON. 

I greet you upon your gathering in this new 
and fair home. It is but a change of place, — not 
of mind or purpose. You lay no new foundations 
of the spirit. What foundation can any man lay 
deeper, broader, more eternal than those you have 
always had, — faith in man and faith in God, whom 
man reveals ? You build no new walls of spiritual 
shelter. What other can you ever need than you have 
always had, — the sense of the encompassing, pro- 
tecting, and perfect laws, the encircling God ? What 
better roof could overarch your souls than the rev- 
erential, trustful sense of the Heavenly Power and 
Love ; the Truth, Justice, and Beauty that are above 
us all ; the Perfect which lifts us to heaven, and 
opens heaven to us and in us, even as in Rome's 
Pantheon — temple of all the Gods, or of the All- 
God — the arching dome leaves in its centre an open 
circle, through which the infinite depths of sky are 
seen that tempt the spirit to soar and soar, without 
a bound, farther than any bird hath ever lifted wing 
or floating air-ship of man's building can ever rise ! 
What spires and pinnacles could you raise that 
would point upward better than that ideal within us, 



I96 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

that haunting sense of Perfection which forever calls 
us to a better manhood, and toward which in all our 
best moments we long and aspire ? What breadth 
of enlarged space could you open, with hospitable 
welcome of free place for all who would come, be- 
yond that entire freedom of thinking, of speaking, 
of hearing, which have been yours, and your offering 
to others, for so many years ? Ever since, indeed, 
you gathered together, resolved that " Theodore 
Parker should have a chance to be heard in Boston," 
and formed the Twenty-eighth Congregational So- 
ciety. Founded in the ecclesiastical independence 
of that name, you, in coming here, have not to break 
away from any ecclesiastical organization. Nor do 
you need now or ever to ask leave of bishop, or 
approbation of consistory or council, — nor fear the 
censure of either, — for anything that you may do 
here, for any one whom you may invite here, for 
anything that may be said here, for any rite or form 
or ceremonial that you here may establish or may 
omit. Springing from such root of sympathy with 
fair play and freedom of speech, — and especially of 
thought and speech that were under some ban of 
heresy, — you have not in coming here had to break 
away from any traditions of orthodoxy or spiritual 
constraint. The traditions you bring here are all 
the other way. It is to no experiment of liberty that 
you open this place of meeting ; to no untried ideas 
and principles, but to well-tested ones, which you 
see no ground to give up or to abate. For ideas and 
principles you have, — though you are bound by no 
creed. Bound by no creed, I say, — refusing to 
proclaim any. Not, however, without individual be- 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 1 97 

liefs, and doubtless with substantial agreement amid 
your varieties of opinion ; but not imposing your 
beliefs upon each other, as conditions of fellowship, 
still less upon any as conditions of salvation. You 
do not impose them upon yourselves as final ; but 
hope that they will grow out into something larger, 
fuller, deeper. You may be afloat ; but you are not 
adrift. You may not know what new worlds of 
truth lie before you ; but you know where you are, 
and in what direction you are going. Beneath you 
is the deep of God ; over you, his eternal stars ; 
within you, the magnet which, with all its variations, 
is yet a trustworthy guide. Your hand is on the 
helm. The sacred forces and laws of nature encom- 
pass you. While you obey them you will not be 
lost. " If your bark sink, 't is to another sea." You 
cannot go beyond God. 

This great principle of freedom of inquiry, liberty 
of thought, you bring with you. And may I not 
say for you that you reaffirm it here ? In using it, 
it has not failed you, or betrayed you, or harmed 
you. You have not found it fatal or dangerous. It 
has not led you into indifference, or into license or 
moral delinquency. It may have led you to deny 
some old beliefs, but it has not left you in denial or 
unbelief. Its free atmosphere has been a tonic to 
your faith. It has brought you to convictions, — the 
more trustworthy and precious because freely reached 
by your own thought, and tested by your own ex- 
perience, and fitted to your own state of mind. No 
longer a report, but something you have seen for 
yourselves. The story is told of a well-known hater 
of shams, that, a new minister coming into his neigh- 



I98 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

borhood, he sought an opportunity of talk with him : 
he wanted to learn, he said, whether this man knew, 
himself, anything of God, or only believed that 
eighteen hundred years ago there lived one who 
knew something of Him. Is not our faith that in 
which we have settled confidence, — what we trust 
our wills to in action ? It is that to which we grav- 
itate, and in which we rest when all disturbing 
influences are withdrawn. It is that to which we 
find ourselves recurring from all aberrations of ques- 
tioning and doubt, as to a practical certainty. We 
may not be able to answer all arguments against it, 
but nevertheless it commends itself to us as true. 
There is to us more reason for holding to it than 
there are reasons for rejecting it. So, while belief 
may be called an act of the understanding, faith is 
rather a consent of the whole nature. It is, there- 
fore, more instinctive than argumentative, though 
reasoning forms an element in it. And it is the 
mighty power which it is, removing mountains, and 
the secret of victory, because it is this consensus of 
thought, feeling, and will, — a deposit of their long 
experiences, an act of the whole man. It is struc- 
tural and organic. But it need not be blind or irra- 
tional. If we must differentiate it from knowledge, 
I would say that, while we may define knowledge to 
be assurance upon outward grounds, faith is assur- 
ance upon real but interior grounds. I repeat this 
because many people seem to think that faith is 
assurance without any ground. Now that our faith 
may be really such as I have described, it must be a 
personal conviction, from our own thought and ex- 
perience. And that it may be this, we must have 
liberty of thinking without external constraint. 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 1 99 

You do not find that this liberty of yours isolates 
you. Others who count it dangerous, or who dislike 
the use you make of it, may cut you off from their 
fellowship. But the liberty which frees you from 
artificial restraints leaves you open to the natural at- 
tractions, and over and through all walls and lines 
you find a large fellowship of sympathy in thought 
and feeling. The electric instincts of spiritual 
brotherhood overleap all barriers of creed and or- 
ganization, even of excommunication. Above all, 
are you bound by such invisible, deep ties with all 
the noble company of the heretics and pioneers of 
thought ; and a noble company it is. For the line 
of so-called heresy is nearly as ancient, and quite as 
honorable, as that of orthodoxy. Think of the names 
that belong to it ! 

Let me say, further, that this liberty of yours — 
your birthright and sacred charge — is not lawless- 
ness. You have never felt it to be so. In a universe 
of law no true liberty can be that. It is not that 
which has made the soul of man thrill as when a 
trumpet sounds ; not that to which the noblest men 
and women have sacrificed popularity, fortune, and 
life. How foolishly Mr. Ruskin talks about liberty, 
misusing his eloquent pen ; saying that we need 
none of it ; and taking for its symbol the capricious 
vagaries of a house-fly ! Is it a house-fly caprice 
that has made the hearts of true men leap high and 
willingly bleed into stillness ; which has been dearer 
than friend or lover, than ease or life ? Your liberty, 
I say, is not lawlessness, — it is not whim and ca- 
price. It is simply the throwing off all bondage of 
tradition and conformity and prescription and eccle- 



200 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

siasticism, — every external compulsion and imposi- 
tion in behalf of the free, natural action of the mind 
and heart. It rejects outward rule in behalf of in- 
ward law. It refuses obedience to outward dictation 
in behalf of its allegiance to the truth which is 
within. Thus it rejects bonds, but accepts bounds ; 
for all law is force acting within bounds, — that is, 
under fixed and orderly conditions. Your liberty is 
order, not disorder. 

Your liberty, again, is not rude or defiant. You 
do not flout authority ; you give due weight to the 
natural authority of superior knowledge, wisdom, 
conscientiousness, holiness. But you acknowledge 
no human authority which claims to be infallible, or 
to impose itself upon you as absolute ; none which 
would deny to you the right, or seek to release you 
from the duty, of thinking for yourself what is true 
to you, of judging for yourself what is right for you. 
The opinion of the wisest you will not accept, in any 
matter that interests you, unless it commends itself 
to your thought, to your conscience, is justified by 
your experience. You will not take your religious 
opinions ready made from pope or synod or apostle. 
God has given you power, and therefore laid upon 
you the duty, of forming your own. In that work 
you will gladly accept all help, willingly listen to the 
words of the wise and good ; but their real authority 
is in their power to convince your mind ; and the 
final appeal is to your own soul. Is inspiration 
claimed for any, its proof must be in its power to in- 
spire you. Till it does it is no word of God to you. 

Yet once more : this liberty, won by pain of those 
gone before, and by your own fidelity, is yours not 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 201 

for its own sake chiefly, not as an end. It is yours 
as opportunity. It will be a barren liberty if it be not 
used. What good will the right of free inquiry do 
to a man who never inquires ? Of what advantage 
freedom of thought to one who never thinks ? Of 
what value the right of private judgment to one who 
never exercises it ? Freedom, I say, is but oppor- 
tunity. It is an atmosphere in which the mind should 
expand unhindered in its inbreathing of truth ; in 
which all virtues should grow in strength, all sweet 
and loving and devout feelings flower into beauty 
and fragrance ; in which the character, uncon- 
strained by artificial bondages, should grow into the 
full stature of manhood, the full possession and free 
play of faculty. It is in vain that you have put away 
infallible church and infallible Bible and official me- 
diator, and priesthood and ritual, from between you 
and God, if you never avail yourself of that im- 
mediate access ; if your soul never springs into the 
arms of the Eternal Love, nor rests itself trustfully 
on the Eternal Strength, nor listens reverently to 
the whispers of the Eternal Word, nor enters into 
the peace of communion with the Immutable. 

Our freedom is founded in faith, not in denial. It 
springs from faith in man. The popular theology 
is founded upon the idea of human incapacity ; ours 
upon faith in human capacity. We believe, not in 
the Fall of Man, but in the Rise of Man. We be- 
lieve, not in the chasm between man and God to be 
bridged over only by the atoning death of a God, but 
in a chasm between man's attainment and his pos- 
sibility, between his lower and his higher nature, to 
be bridged over by growth, government, and culture. 



202 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

We believe that there is more good in man generally 
than evil. And the evil we believe to be, not a na- 
tive disability, but an imperfection or a misuse, an 
excess or perversion, of faculties and instincts whose 
natural or right use is good. We believe sin is not 
an infinite evil, but a finite one, — incidental, not 
structural. Man is not helpless in its toils ; but 
every man has the elements of good in him which 
may overcome it, and all needed helps. It is a dis- 
ease, — sometimes a dreadful one, — but not abso- 
lutely fatal, since there is a healing power in his na- 
ture, and in the universe around and above him ; and 
the excess or misdirection may be overcome by the 
inward effort and outward influences which shall 
strengthen into supremacy the higher faculties 
which rightfully control and direct the lower. We 
believe in the existence of these higher faculties as 
original in man's constitution, — reason, conscience, 
ideality, unselfish love. These are as much a part 
of his nature as the senses and the animal mind. 
When rightly used they are as valid, — not infal- 
lible, but trustworthy. They will not necessarily 
lead astray, as the popular theology teaches, but 
probably lead aright. That theology, not having 
faith in human nature, cannot believe that freedom 
of thinking is safe for men. Protestantism pro- 
claims indeed the " right of private judgment," but 
it is merely the right to read the Jewish and Chris- 
tian Bible, and to accept unquestioning its declara- 
tions, bowing natural reason, heart, and conscience 
to its texts, believed to be the miraculously inspired 
and infallible Word of God, the " perfect rule of 
faith and practice." The Roman Catholic Church, 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 203 

far more logical, seeing that private judgment gets 
such a variety of meaning out of this "perfect rule," 
declares that an infallible Bible, to be such a rule, 
needs an infallible interpreter, — namely, the church, 
or, latterly, the Pope speaking for the church. It 
therefore logically denies freedom of individual 
thinking as dangerous. Father Newman, indeed, 
with amusing simplicity, declares that nowhere is 
liberty of thought more encouraged than in the Ro- 
man Church, since, he says, she allows a long discus- 
sion of every tenet and dogma before it is definitely 
defined and proclaimed. Yes ; but after? We can 
only smile at such a pretension. In London, a friend 
said to me, " I do not see but these Broad Church- 
men have freedom to say everything that they want 
to say in their pulpits." I answered, " Perhaps so ; 
but then they do not want to say all that you and I 
should want to say." But of what they wish to say 
or think much must require an immense stretching 
of the articles to which they have subscribed. I do 
not speak of conscience, for I will not judge an- 
other's. But what a trap to conscience, what a 
temptation to at least mental dishonesty, must such 
subscription be ! And the liturgy, from which no 
word may be omitted, though many a priest must 
say officially what he does not individually believe, 
— can that be good for a man ? I know what may 
be said on the other side, but to us it will seem that 
all advantages are dearly purchased at such cost. 
The Unitarians, the Protestants of Protestants, in 
their revolt from Calvinism, proclaimed the right of 
free inquiry. And, let it be remembered to their 
credit, they have refused to announce an authorita- 



204 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

tive creed. But they have not had full faith in their 
own principles and ideas. They have hesitated and 
been timid in their application. They have been 
suspicious and unfriendly toward those who went 
farther than they in the use of their freedom of think- 
ing. They have written up, " No Thoroughfare " 
and " Dangerous Passing " on their own road. They 
have now organized round the dogma of the Lord- 
ship and Leadership of Jesus ; and invite to their 
fellowship, not all who would be "followers of God, 
as dear children," but only those who " wish to be 
followers of Christ." 

I do not forget that in all churches, Romanist and 
Protestant, there is a spirit of liberty, a leaven of 
free thought, which is creating a movement in them 
all, — an inner fire which is breaking the crust of 
tradition and creed and ecclesiasticism. It shows 
itself in the Old Catholic movement in Romanism ; 
the Broad Church in Anglicanism ; the Liberal wing 
in Orthodoxy ; the Radicalism in " Liberal Chris- 
tianity." 

But the freedom which in these is inconsistent, 
imperfect, or unwelcome, with you is organic and 
thorough. Our faith in it, I said, springs out of our 
faith in man and God, to which indeed our freedom 
has led us. We think that man can be trusted to 
search for the truth without constraint or hindrance, 
because we think that his mind was made for truth, 
as his eye for light ; and that to his mind, fairly 
used, the truth will reveal itself as the light does to 
his eye. And we believe that in his sincere search 
he is never unassisted by the Spirit of Truth. We 
do not say that he will make no mistakes, or that he 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 20 5 

will know all truth all at once. But if a man be 
earnest and sincere, his mistakes will be his teach- 
ers ; his errors will be but his imperfect apprehen- 
sion of some truth. We believe that all truth that 
has ever come to man, including religious truth, has 
come through the use of his native faculties ; that 
this is the condition of all revelation, and ample to 
account for all revelations. We therefore utterly 
discard all distinction between natural and revealed 
religion. We should as soon speak of natural and 
revealed astronomy, or establish separate professor- 
ships for teaching them. Newton revealed to men 
the facts of the universe which his natural faculties 
discovered, and which the universe revealed to him, 
using his faculties. Some of these facts were un- 
known before to the wisest men ; some were only 
dimly guessed. Did that prove his knowledge 
superhuman ? Would it be a sensible question to 
ask, Why, if human reason were capable of discover- 
ing them, were they not known before ? Yet such 
questions are asked in religion, as if unanswerable ! 
We believe that the human faculties are adequate 
for their end. Among them we recognize spiritual 
faculties, framed for the perception of spiritual 
truths, a religious capacity adequate to its end. 
We find religion — a sense of deity — as universal 
and as natural to man as society, government, lan- 
guage, science. You know how the latest and com- 
pletest investigations into the ancient religions of 
the world confirm this belief. They show that the 
great religious ideas and sentiments, of God, of vir- 
tue, of love, of immortality, have been taught with 
remarkable unanimity in all these religions. These 



206 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

are mingled in all with much that is mythological, 
unscientific, local, personal, temporary. But they 
have all contained that which elevated, consoled, 
and redeemed the souls of men. Under all of them, 
men have lived the truth they professed, and have 
suffered and died in its behalf. Most of them have 
had their prophet, believed to have been the chosen 
friend of God, sent to communicate his word to the 
world. He has been worshiped by his followers, 
glorified with miracle, deified. In view of these 
facts, it is impossible to regard any one of them as 
the only, the universal, or the perfect religion. 
Christianity, therefore, cannot any longer be re- 
garded as other than one of the religions of the 
world, sharing the qualities of them all. It has its 
bright central truths, eternal as the soul of man, 
elevating, comforting, redeeming. It has its ele- 
ments of mythology, its personal and local traits, 
peculiar to itself. What is peculiar in it can never 
become universal ; what is universal in it cannot be 
claimed as its peculiar property. The Christianity 
of the New Testament centres in the idea that 
Jesus was the miraculously attested Messiah, the 
King, long expected, of the Jews. " If ye believe 
not that I am he, ye shall perish in your sins." 
" Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus, the Mes- 
siah, is come in the flesh, is of God ; every spirit 
that confesseth not that Jesus is the Messiah come 
in the flesh, is not of God." " Whosoever shall con- 
fess that Jesus is the Son of God [that is, the Mes- 
siah], God dwelleth in him." " Whosoever believes 
that Jesus is the Messiah is born of God." This 
was the primitive Christian confession, — the test 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 207 

of belief or unbelief, the test of discipleship, the 
condition of salvation. Paul enlarged the domain 
of the Messiah's kingdom to include all of the Gen- 
tiles who would acknowledge him ; declared that in 
his own lifetime he should see Jesus returning to 
take the Messianic throne, and looked to see the 
time when " every knee should bow, and every 
tongue confess that Jesus was the Christ," "whom 
God had raised from the dead, and set at his own 
right hand, far above all principality and might and 
dominion and every name that is named." This 
was the primitive Christian confession. Seeing that 
it has never come to pass, that it was a mistaken 
idea, some modern Christians idealize the thought, 
and say that Jesus is morally and spiritually King 
among men. But that is not the New Testament 
idea, which is literal, not figurative. This Messianic 
idea, in its most literal sense, colors the Christian 
scriptures through and through. And with it, its 
correlative idea of an immediately impending de- 
struction and renovation of the world, which was 
to accompany the Messianic appearance. A great 
many of the precepts of the New Testament have 
their ground in this erroneous notion of the writers, 
and have no significance or application apart from 
it. It is such things as these that make it impossi- 
ble for Christianity, as it stands in the records, to 
be the universal or absolute religion. Just as like 
things in Brahminism, Buddhism, Judaism, prevent 
any one of these, as it stands in its scriptures, from 
becoming the religion of the world. What is local, 
personal, peculiar, special in each, is of its nature 
transient, — the temporary environment and wrap- 



208 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

page of the truth. What is universal in each, the 
central spiritual and moral ideas which reappear in 
them all, these cannot be called by the name of any 
one of them. These, it seems to me, are neither 
Judaism, Buddhism, nor Christianity, — they are 
religion. 

Religion, — a name how often taken in vain, how 
often perverted ! but in its true essence what a joy, 
what an emancipation, what a consolation, what an 
inspiration ! What a life it has been in the world ! 
Corrupted and betrayed, made the cloak of iniquity, 
ambition, selfishness, uncharitableness, and tyranny, 
it has never perished out of the human soul. A 
product of that soul, an original and ineradicable 
impulse, perception, and sentiment, it has shared 
the fate of that soul in its upward progress out of 
ignorance into knowledge, out of superstition into 
rational faith, out of selfishness into humanity, out 
of all imperfection on toward perfection. In every 
age, and in every soul, it has been the saving salt. 
For by religion, I need not say, I do not mean any 
form or ceremonial whatever, any organization or 
ecclesiasticism. I mean the Ideal in man, and de- 
votion to that Ideal. The sense of a Perfect above 
him, yet akin to him, forever drawing him upward 
to union with itself. The Moral Ideal, or sense of 
a perfect Righteousness, — how it has summoned 
men away from injustice and wrong-doing, awakened 
them to a contest with evil within them, and led 
them on to victory of the conscience over passion 
and greed ! How it has nerved them to do battle 
with injustice in the world, and kept them true to 
some cause of righting wrong, patient and brave 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 20O, 

through indifference, opposition, suffering ! And it 
has always been a sense of a power, and a law of 
righteousness above themselves, which they did not 
create and dared not disobey, and which, while it 
seemed to compel them, yet exalted and freed them. 
The Intellectual Ideal, the sense of a Supreme 
Truth, a Reality in things, with the thirst to know 
it, — how it has led men to " scorn delights and live 
laborious days," to outwatch the night, to traverse 
land and sea, in its study and pursuit, to sacrifice 
for it fortune and society — this also felt to be some- 
thing above them, yet belonging to them ; something 
worth living and dying for, and giving to its sharers 
a sense of endless life ! And the Ideal of Beauty, 
haunting, quickening, exalting the imagination to 
feel, to see, to create, in marble, on canvas, in tones, 
in words, — itself its own great reward. The Ideal 
of Use, leading to the creation and perfecting of the 
arts and instruments of human need and comfort 
and luxury, — every one of them at first only a dream 
in the brain of the inventor, a vision of a something 
better than existed haunting his toilsome days and 
years of self-denial and poverty. The Ideal of 
Patriotism or of Loyalty, the sense of social order, 
of a rightful sovereignty, or of popular freedom, — 
how has it made men into heroes and martyrs, giv- 
ing up ease and facing death with exulting hearts. 
The Ideal of Love or Benevolence, that makes men 
devote themselves and consecrate their possessions 
to the relieving of human suffering and removing its 
sources. The Ideal of Sanctity, of Holiness, the 
vision and the consecration of the saint, the aspi- 
ration after goodness, that by its inspiration gives 



2IO DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

power to overcome passion and control desire and 
purify every thought of the mind and every feeling 
of the heart, and mould the spirit into the likeness 
of the All-Holy. 

All these ideals, differing so much in their man- 
ifestation and direction, are alike in this, — that they 
all look to an unseen Better, a Best,- a Perfect ; that 
this seems always above the man who seeks it, yet 
at the same time within him, not of his own creation, 
but governing him by a law superior to his own will, 
while attracting and invigorating it ; that they all 
demand a self-surrender and self-devotion, and sacri- 
fice of lower to higher, and give the power to make 
that sacrifice ; and that they are their own reward. 

All these ideals — and if there be any others — I 
include in the idea of Religion. Is my definition too 
broad ? I cannot make it narrower. It will not seem 
too broad to you who are accustomed to regard reli- 
gion as covering all human life. Whatever in that 
life is an expression of ideal aspiration, is done in 
unselfish devotion, and in obedience to the highest 
law we know, is a religious act, is a worship and a 
prayer. It is a service of God ; for it is a use of our 
faculties to their highest end, which must be his will 
for us. It is a contact with things invisible and eter- 
nal. For these ideals are of the mind, not of the 
body ; they are of the soul, and must go with it into 
all worlds. They are thus an element, and a proof, 
of immortality. 

O friends, is there anything the world needs, is 
there anything every one of us needs, more than 
some high ideal, to be kept bright and clear within 
us by sincere devotion ? Is there anything we need 



DEDICA TIOW OF PARKER MEMORIAL 2 1 1 

more than a high standard in character, in aim, in 
spirit, in work ? We have it in our best moments. 
But how easily we let it get clouded in the press of 
cares ! How easily we yield to the temptation to 
lower it for immediate results ! Is there anything 
we need more than the elevation of spirit such an 
ideal gives, the power to rise above annoyance and 
fret, above low and selfish thought, above unworthy 
deeds ? How ashamed we stand before that ideal 
when, because we have not been obedient to its 
celestial vision, but have too easily let it go, we are 
betrayed into the temper, the word, the act we had 
resolved should never betray us again ! What is 
needed in our politics, in our business — do not daily 
events teach it to us most impressively ? — but a 
higher ideal ; a higher standard of integrity ; a high- 
minded sense of right, which would take no question- 
able dollar from the public purse ; a sensitive con- 
science, scrupulous of the rights of others given to 
its trust ? Then the haste to be rich would cease to 
be the root of evil that it is, and embezzlements, 
defalcations, political jobs, and mercantile frauds no 
longer shock and grieve us with every paper we take 
up. Oh, the anguish and self-reproach of the man 
who has involved himself, little by little, in the toils 
and excitements of temptation, and, accepting a 
lowering standard of honesty, sinks, till he is startled 
to find himself fallen into the pit ! 

What is more needed in all our work than a higher 
ideal of excellence, a higher standard of truth and 
conscientiousness ? How hard to get anything done 
thoroughly well, — precisely as agreed upon, and at 
the time promised ! Most earnestly would I insist 



212 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

that every right which the "workingman " can justly 
claim should be secured to him ; his full share of 
the product he helps create, and every opportunity 
for health, recreation, and culture which he will use. 
But he should remember that faithful performance 
of ditties on his part will be the best ground for any 
claim of rights ; he must be careful of the right of 
others to honest work and honest time in return for 
fair pay. 

How great is our indebtedness to those great and 
true souls who have kindled or kept alive within us 
a loftier ideal ! What an influence in that way has 
the image of Jesus been in the Christian world ! 
Many have not seen that what they worshiped or 
looked up to in him was often simply their own ideal 
of human excellence, — really not so much derived 
from him as projected upon him, with little regard 
to historic fact. But this shows us, still, the power 
of a lofty ideal within us to lift up, sustain, and 
redeem. Many, if they were willing to speak frankly, 
would say that the human excellence of some noble, 
pure-hearted, spiritually-minded friend, with whom 
they had walked in the flesh, has been more to them 
than the image of Jesus. And when we remember 
that these high ideals have inspired millions who 
never heard his name, it is plain that he cannot be 
regarded as their origin. There is one Supreme 
Ideal of Goodness. "Likeness to God" was the 
aim of the Pythagorean teaching. " Be ye perfect, 
as your Father in heaven is perfect." 

All these ideals of truth, righteousness, beauty, 
use, love, holiness, of which I have spoken as con- 
stituting, in our devotion to them, true religion, 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 21 3 

unite in the Idea of God. For He is the Perfect of 
them all, the Spirit or Essence of them all, — the 
perfect Truth, the perfect Righteousness, the per- 
fect Beauty, the perfect Love, the perfect Power, 
the perfect Holiness. That is what we mean by 
saying " God " — surely nothing less than that. 
This sublime idea has always, in some shape, haunted 
and possessed the mind of man. The moment the 
spiritual faculties begin to germinate in a man or a 
race, at that moment the thought of God springs up. 
From our far-off Aryan ancestor, who, on those high 
plains of Central Asia, looked up to the clear, trans- 
parent sky, and said thankfully and reverently, 
" Dyaus-pitar," Heaven-father, — for he knew that 
the blessing of sunshine and rain came thence to 
him, and must have felt a mysterious sense of some 
being invisible in that visible, — down to the child 
who to-day makes his prayer, " Our Father, who art 
in heaven," all over the world the reverence of men's 
hearts, and their sense of blessing and dependence, 
have uttered the name of God, and joined with it the 
thought of Father. The conceptions in which men's 
thought and language have clothed that idea have 
varied with knowledge and culture. But the central 
idea of a power and beneficence superior to man, in 
nature and above nature, has been ever present. 
Delusions may have gathered about it — but is it a 
delusion ? Superstitions may have distorted it — but 
can you count it a superstition ? I count it the great- 
est of realities. I accept the wellnigh universal ver- 
dict of the soul of man. I accept the experiences 
of my own soul. I accept the faith which, whether 
it be original or an inheritance of accumulated 



214 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

thought, is now an instinct and intuition within me. 
I accept the confirmation of science to the divina- 
tion of the soul, in its more and more clear affirma- 
tion of a unity and perpetuity of Force in Nature, 
and an omnipresence of Law. I accept the testi- 
mony of saints who, through purity of heart, have 
seen God and felt Him near, — and more than near. 
Their highest statement is, " God is Spirit." A 
distinguished preacher has said — justifying his 
declaration that Jesus Christ is his God — that he 
believes it impossible to form the conception of pure 
spirit. Of course we cannot form any image or pic- 
ture of it. But we can think it, surely. For we 
know thought and feeling and will in ourselves, and 
these have no shape, nor do we confound them with 
the bodies in which they are manifested. Thought, 
feeling, will, — these are our spirit, our essential 
life. God is the infinite Thought, Feeling, Will, — 
the infinite Spirit or essential Life of the universe 
of matter and of soul. Our conception of Him must 
depend, I said, upon our spiritual condition. But 
I think with every advance in spiritual life and per- 
ception, we put off more and more of physical and 
human limitation. Said one to me, the other day, " I 
think it will be no service to men to undermine their 
belief in a personal God." Now, thought, feeling, 
and will are qualities of person, and not of thing, 
and therefore we may speak of God as the infinite 
Person. But he meant, as is usually meant, by per- 
sonality, individuality. For myself, I think it a great 
gain to give up the conception of God as an individ- 
ual being, however majestic, sitting apart from the 
universe, overseeing and governing it, and from time 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 21 5 

to time intervening by special act. I count it a great 
gain to have reached a conception of Him as pure 
Spirit, the all-pervading Life of the Universe, the 
present Power and present Love and present Justice 
at every point of that universe, — perpetually creat- 
ing it by his present Energy of good. Present per- 
petually in the affairs of men, invisibly, restraining 
evil, righting wrong, leading on to the perfect 
society. Present really in the hearts and minds and 
consciences and wills of men, not displacing them, 
but reinforcing them. " If we love one another, 
God dwelleth in us," said the inspired writer of old, 
— surely inspired when he said that. " If a man is 
at heart just," said the inspired modern, "by so 
much he is God. The power of God and the eternity 
of God do enter into that man with justice." How 
could this be if God be a separate, individual being ? 
But conceive of him as Being, and the difficulty 
vanishes. It is no figure of speech, but literally 
true, that He dwells in holy souls, inspiring and 
working through Him. " The Father who dwelleth 
in me," said Jesus. Yes, but in no special or mirac- 
ulous way ; in the way of the universal law of spir- 
itual action, as He dwells in all souls that aspire and 
obey. "Above all, and through all, and in us all." 

Does this conception of God as Essential Life 
seem to any vague and unreal ? Oh, think again, 
how substantial are thought, feeling, and will ! The 
moving powers of the human world setting all the 
material into action ! How many perplexities of 
thought, which beset the common view of God as 
an individual being, disappear under this conception 
of Him as spirit ! How does it make possible the 



2l6 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

thought of his omniscience and omnipresence and 
providence ! No longer the all-seeing eye, watching 
us from afar, but the present Spirit, knowing us from 
within, involved in our thought and our thinking, ■ — 
the law or order by which we think and feel, the 
present power by which we act. Spirit can thus 
encompass us, and flow through us, without oppress- 
ing us, or hindering our freedom. Do the forces of 
nature — of attraction, of gravitation, of chemical 
affinity — oppress us ? We cannot get away from 
them, but do we not move freely among them ? The 
air is around us and within us, a mighty pressure, — 
do we feel the weight of it ? In such sweet, familiar, 
unconscious ways does God, the Spirit, encompass 
and dwell within our spirits. How can we flee from 
that Spirit, or go where it will not uphold and keep 
us ? Our God besets us behind and before. Our 
Father never leaves us alone. Modern science, we 
are told, is rejecting all notion of volition from the 
material world. The conception of God as Spirit has 
already done that. For God's will, in that concep- 
tion, is no separate jets of choice, but an all-filling, 
steadfast Energy, — a Power living at every point. 
His will is no series of finite volitions, but an infinite 
purpose in the constitution of things, — the unchan- 
ging element in them which we call their law. God's 
will, therefore, is not in any sense arbitrary. A 
permanent force, with its permanent laws, from 
constant conditions it produces constant results. 
Wrought into the constitution of things and beings, 
it is there to be studied, known, and obeyed. 

Friends of the Twenty-eighth Congregational 
Society : Coming at your call to speak to you on 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 2\J 

this occasion of the dedication of your new house, 
I have not thought it unfitting to the occasion, 
instead of trying to open to you some new topic, 
rather to offer you this outline and review of prin- 
ciples and ideas already somewhat familiar to you. 
We glance over what has been gained before begin- 
ning anew our quest. You build here no House of 
God, but a house for men. A " meeting-house " you 
call it, — the good old New England name, — not a 
church ; for is not the church the men and women, 
not the walls ? You have most fittingly made it a 
memorial of your first minister. And this in no 
slavish adulation, and in no slavish following of him. 
You are not bound to his thoughts. But you can 
never forget or cease to be grateful to him, many of 
you, for the emancipation of thought you owe to 
him ; for the moral invigoration, for the quickening 
of devout feeling, always to him so precious. 

He was a thorough believer in the liberty of 
which I have spoken. He believed that it should 
have no bounds save such as love of truth and good 
sense and feeling might set to it. And he used the 
freedom he believed in. And when, in the use of 
it, he was led to judge and reject some things around 
which the reverence of the denomination to which 
he belonged clung, they who had taught him the 
liberty which he used, with some noble exceptions, 
— I am sorry to recall it, — to save their credit, 
proved false to their principle. They lost a noble 
opportunity. They had always insisted that the 
essential in Christianity was not belief, but character 
and life ; now they turned round, and asserted that 
it was not a spirit and a life, but a belief in super- 



2l8 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

natural history. He did not spare them, and hurled 
at them the arrows of his wit and the smooth stones 
of his keen logic. He did battle for the freedom 
which was denied. Men mistook his wit for malig- 
nity, and his moral indignation for bitterness. But, 
though he was capable of sarcasm, his heart was 
sweet and kind, and full of genial sympathies, as 
those who knew him best, best knew. 

His services to Theology in this country were 
very great. His work was partly destructive, clear- 
ing away errors and superstitions, but mainly con- 
structive. He built up a complete system of theol- 
ogy, founded upon the native spiritual instincts in 
man and the infinite perfection of God. Though a 
vigorous practical understanding was the character- 
istic of his mind, he accepted this ideal or transcen- 
dental theory of religion, and, with his clear common 
sense and terse sentences, interpreted it to the 
general mind. Though no mystic, he had much 
devout feeling, and loved to speak of piety, and the 
soul's normal delight in God. You will never forget 
the deeply reverential tone of his public prayers to 
the " Father and Mother of us all." But even more 
than in piety he believed in and loved and enforced 
righteousness in every form ; and his great power 
was ethical. How clear and sure was his sense of 
right ; a conscience for the nation ; its guidance 
sought by how many, in public and private duty ! 
Before its keen glance how many an idol fell ! He 
liked to be called a Teacher of Religion; and he 
made it cover all of life. He applied its ideal to the 
nation, and, finding human slavery there, he threw 
all his energies into rousing the conscience of the 



DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 219 

country to feel its falseness and its iniquity, and to 
work for its removal. In this cause he rendered 
you know what noble and devoted service, gaining 
the sympathies of many who least liked his theology. 
He gave the weight of his advocacy to every cause 
of humane reform, pleading for the poor and the 
perishing classes, for the rights of woman, for tem- 
perance and purity and peace. 

He has left you a powerful influence and a her- 
itage of principles and ideas, to whose charge you 
show yourselves faithful in building this house, that 
the work he begun may be carried on and fulfilled. 
The men and the women whom you call to speak to 
you know that they will have full freedom of speech 
and hospitable hearing to their most advanced 
thought. You will expect them to speak to you, 
not upon theological questions alone, or on the 
experiences of devout feeling or personal duties, 
but on all that deeply concerns the welfare of the 
community ; upon the vital questions of the day, 
and its present needs ; upon political and social 
topics ; upon questions of moral reform and humane 
effort, and rights of man and woman ; upon all the 
practical applications of ideal thought. All these 
you will wish discussed, in the utmost freedom, and 
from the highest point of view. 

But not for speech alone is this house to be used. 
I cannot but hope that your enlarged space will be 
used as opportunity for work in various directions 
of help and good-will. Why should not this be a 
headquarters of action as well as thought ? 

And now, may I say for you, that you devote and 
dedicate this house to freedom and to religion ; to 



220 DEDICATION OF PARKER MEMORIAL 

truth and to virtue ; to piety, to righteousness, and 
to humanity; to knowledge and to culture ; to duty, 
to beauty, and to joy; to faith and hope and char- 
ity ; to the memory of saints, reformers, heretics, and 
martyrs ; to the love and service of God, in the love 
and service of Man. 

September 21, 1873. 



TRUTH 

For this cause came I into the world : to bear witness to the 
truth. 

Pilate said, What is truth ? — John xviii. 37, 38. 

There are always men who are ready to ask, with 
an idle curiosity, with an interest too superficial to 
wait for an answer, this question, "What is truth ? " 
There are always those who are ready to ask it, with 
a saddened or scornful skepticism, as quite sure there 
is no answer to be given ; no truth ; nothing but 
fancies, speculations, notions, opinions, fleeting, con- 
tradictory, and futile. 

And, thank God, there have always been men, like 
Jesus, who have seen the truth to be such a tran- 
scendent, vital, divine reality that they knew it to be 
a thing worth living, worth dying for. So Jesus 
could declare the truth to be, no fancy, no delusion, 
no mere opinion or speculation, but that thing to 
bear witness to which was the one purpose of his 
existence, the thing for which he was born. 

" What is truth ? " said Pilate. Some years ago, 
a maiden came to me, having in her hand a book in 
which she said she had asked many persons to write 
their definitions of truth. What I wrote was this : 
Truth is the reality of things which lies under 
all appearances ; what they are, and are eternally. 
Truth is that which is. 



222 TRUTH 

In a temple of ancient Egypt, it was once said, 
there stood a veiled statue with this inscription : 
" I am that which has been, and that which is, and 
that which shall be. The Light is my offspring, and 
no man hath lifted my veil." 

So stands Truth before worshiping man ; and so she 
speaks to him. Truth shrouded in mystery; clothed 
in light ; transcending our power to look upon her 
full and ample proportions. No man has seen her 
altogether as she is. Yet many a soul, gazing ear- 
nestly, reverently, has beheld the outlines ; caught 
here and there a lineament, a feature ; has seen that, 
when the veil has for a moment been parted, which 
has excited and enraptured him, and of which he has 
sought to speak to others. And they have, perhaps 
gladly, perhaps incredulously, listened to his report. 

No one has ever seen the whole of Truth. And 
because of that, and of the imperfection of the eyes 
which have looked, and of the words in which they 
have reported, the fragmentary reports men have 
brought back of what they have seen have been so 
various and seemed so contradictory. But it does 
not follow, because human philosophies, sciences, 
theologies, which are these reports, have been so 
various and fleeting — it does not follow that there 
is no reality ; but only that men have had imperfect 
and fragmentary vision of the reality ; and made im- 
perfect and fragmentary report of it. 

But the yearning that will not be appeased, the 
inquiry that will not rest, the search that will not 
stop — these are the perpetual indication that the 
reality is an eternal reality. These are a perpetual 
invitation to the utmost powers of the mind. And 



TRUTH 223 

man's satisfaction in truth, I suppose, is never to be 
the satisfaction of entirely comprehending it, the 
satisfaction of full possession, as in a finished work ; 
but the grander joy of perpetual attainment yet per- 
petual seeking ; the grander delight of ever-exciting 
and inexhaustible exploration, the charm of which 
shall forever be as fresh as on the first day. 

And so to man seems to be assured, also, the end- 
lessness of his soul's life, since its work can never 
be accomplished and ended. Nay, this assurance 
of immortality comes in a higher way ; not as an 
inference, but as a possession, with the first great 
truth, or everlasting principle, which dawns or flashes 
upon our spirits. In receiving that we have entered 
into eternity, and feel that the life of that brief hour 
is a life which cannot perish. For it is the life of 
God. Surely there is no joy to be named beyond 
this, — psalms of reverent thanksgiving alone can 
celebrate it, — that hour of spiritual exaltation when 
a great truth, a divine idea, an everlasting prin- 
ciple is revealed within us. It may be in answer to 
the long and earnest application of the mind to the 
search. It may be in answer to the uplifting of the 
heart in prayer. It may be in answer to the conse- 
cration of the conscience in devoted right-doing. 
The revelation may be of a truth of science, one of 
the great laws or thoughts of God in the physical 
universe, which are as the beams of this, his house ; 
the guiding lines of the world's plan, the discovery of 
which shall arrange a thousand before chaotic details. 
Or it may be a truth of philosophy or theology, a 
thought of God in the soul, in the spiritual order, a 
guiding line in the spiritual universe, the discovery 



224 TRUTH 

of which shall make clear many perplexities of 
thought and many mysteries of being. Or it may 
be a truth of morals and conduct, a principle of 
right, of justice, of humanity, which shall show us 
the true path of self-discipline, or the true method of 
some reformation of society, because it is itself the 
law and the power of redemption and reformation. 
Whichever of these it be, it is the revelation of a 
thought of God within us, and, so far, an incoming 
of the truth, of the life of God, into our reason or 
our conscience. Therefore it is exalting and beauti- 
ful, an unspeakable joy, a true uprising of worship. 
Then comes a sense of fuller life and larger breath, 
a sense as of wings. Then it is as if walls fell asun- 
der and one's narrow cell widened out into illimitable 
aisles. Then littleness and limitations and weak- 
ness, for the time, vanish. It is resurrection ; it is 
new birth ; it is eternal life ! God is with us ; God 
is in us, and we in Him. 

How surely we feel, in such an hour, that the 
thought which is freeing and inspiring us, the truth 
which is revealed in us, is not of our own making, 
nor do we possess it. It rather possesses us. It is 
something boundless, upon whose borders we have 
been privileged to enter. It is a prospect, a light, 
a mountain-top atmosphere, open to all that can or 
will climb. For I have used the words inspiration 
and revelation advisedly in speaking of this experi- 
ence. Not to one age or to one nation are inspira- 
tion and revelation confined ; they are the common 
heritage of humanity, alike in kind, differing in 
degree. And I will add that when I speak of truth 
being in the mind as a revelation and inspiration, I 



TRUTH 225 

do not, of course, mean words of tradition in the 
memory, but a personal, living perception of truth. 

But the different revelations or convictions of 
men, held with equal assurance, you still urge, can- 
not be equally true. What else could happen, I ask, 
since these perceptions, these revelations, are not 
of the full and absolute truth, but fragmentary as- 
pects of it, and approaches to it ? The statements 
of truth that the wisest can make, or have made, 
are but approximations ; true, but not all of the 
truth. Yet the differences may be easily exagger- 
ated. We find, for instance, the great central 
thoughts of piety and morals shining out over all 
the world and through all generations ; the same 
essential truths, often in almost identical words ; 
freeing themselves, as the world goes on, more and 
more from encumbering accretions of error, and 
getting to be more and more widely received. 

It seems to me that, among the conditions of 
truth-finding or revelation, this is one, that whatever 
of truth or approximation to truth we have attained, 
we must hold to it with tenacity and assurance as 
the truth for us and for the time ; must hold to it to 
live and die by. It seems to me that this fidelity to 
the conviction of the hour, truth will not dispense 
with. If a man holds faintly and indecisively to 
what of truth he has attained, I do not see how he 
can gain any more beyond. Nevertheless, we must 
hold it in readiness to give it up the hour that a 
new or larger truth is revealed. For truth in our 
minds, our vision of it, is not a finality, but a march. 
And the moment the word is given, we must strike 
our tent, without a sigh, though it sheltered never 



226 TRUTH 

so securely a rest never so sweet. To-morrow 
another roof awaits us, or only God's bare sky ! 
Our march, however, is an ascent. We do not lose 
what we leave behind ; we only gain a larger pros- 
pect and outlook, which includes what we have left 
behind seen in truer aspects and relations, and di- 
vested of many hindrances and obstructions. Each 
step, however, must be planted as firmly as if we 
were to stand there forever ; then each step will be 
a ground of vantage for the one beyond. We must 
hold each truth attained with a grasp as firm as if it 
were never to be unloosed, then it will give us a 
purchase by which we can swing ourselves higher. 

Of course, this pursuit of truth is not always a 
straightforward progress, nor a summer morning's 
mountain climb ; struggle and obstacle and storm 
and morass often beset it, and terrors lest we be 
lost. But if the emperor of old could say to the 
frightened sailors, " Fear not ; who sails with Caesar 
comes to land," more surely we may say, Fear not ; 
who sails with Truth — which is with God — comes 
to land. And if at the first unmooring upon that 
sea, the motion of the vessel and the tossing of the 
waves make us fearful, when we get used to it, it 
becomes an exhilarating delight ; and as the deck 
grows firm beneath our wonted feet, we tread it 
with a sense of new freedom and life. Certainly we 
will not imitate the example of the passenger who, 
in a storm, lashed himself to the anchor, as being 
the strongest thing in the ship, — a good type of 
the ultra conservative. 

Besides this intellectual earnestness, as I may call 
it, our other condition of finding the truth is moral 



TRUTH 227 

earnestness, the desire to use the truth as a means 
of nobler and truer living, the willingness and pur- 
pose to live out and live up to the truth we have 
intellectually attained. " If any man is wishing to 
do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine." 
From him who does not use the truth which is 
revealed to him, the revelation will soon be taken 
away. By want of moral fidelity, the power of see- 
ing truth is impaired, the mental vision is dimmed, 
and men are given over to believe a lie. The ha- 
bitual wrong-doer loses his perception of the true 
character of his acts. 

Still another condition of knowing the truth is, I 
think, the willingness to make some sacrifice for it, 
to work for it, to suffer for it. The willingness, for 
instance, to sacrifice preconceived ideas and the 
pride of opinion ; to sacrifice the comfort of estab- 
lished and popular beliefs ; to sacrifice, perhaps, 
friendship and social position and popularity ; the 
willingness to do something and to give something 
to sustain and spread the truth we have reached, 
especially if it is unpopular. 

For if there be this satisfaction and joy that I 
spoke of in the vision of new and higher truth, there 
would seem to follow the desire and the obligation 
to bring others to that joy ; to help the world, or 
some part of it, or some soul in it, to a share of that 
satisfaction, of that new life and freedom, which so 
exalts us. 

For this cause came we into the world, not merely 
to enjoy the truth, but to bear witness to it. 

No man has rightly ranged his life who has not 
incorporated this at least among its aims ; who has 



228 TRUTH 

not felt that in every truth God has revealed to him 
He has made him mediator of that truth, and in some 
sense given him a command to preach and bear 
testimony to that truth in the world. Yes, and to 
stand by it and to do something for it; and, as I 
said, to sacrifice something for it until it be received, 
and by its reception have made the way for the next 
step and the next truth, the next revelation. Nor 
must he be too fearful or too careful lest his truth 
(so that it be a truth to him and not a mere notion 
or opinion) should shock or pain the preconceived 
beliefs of others. That is a healthful shock which 
sets people thinking. Besides, the new truth which 
pains some is the very thing that others are needing 
and longing for. 

Indeed, except with persons of a certain sensitive, 
indolent, or unsocial turn of mind, the natural im- 
pulse of men is to impart their ideas. Hence come 
discipleship, schools of philosophy, parties in politics, 
sects in religion, associations for reform. Then this 
has to be guarded against, — that the party, the sect, 
the society and its interests, should come to be val- 
ued more than the truth, the idea, for whose sake 
alone they exist. Then comes the retribution, that 
(as Coleridge said) he who begins to love his sect 
or party more than the truth will end by loving him- 
self more than either. 

The Church, if it stands for anything, stands for 
the truth. It is apt only to stand for it, and not to 
move for it. Church establishments have a tendency 
in conserving the truth, to dry and petrify it ; to 
become mummy-pits instead of seed beds. How- 
ever, there is fortunately that law in the constitution 



TRUTH 229 

of things which compels them, at the moment they 
are doing this, to put forth the life that remains in 
them in the form of heresies. 

And, in this way, theological truth, which in the 
highest sense is the highest truth, — for what higher 
service can you render men than to give them a 
higher and truer thought of God, a higher and better 
view of man and his destiny ? — in this way, I say, 
the way of heresies, theological truth has advanced, 
and is advancing. And the real life of a church 
(as of a nation) is almost always with its heretics 
and reformers, with those whom it is wishing to 
exclude or suppress. The life of an oak-tree is not 
in its solid core, sturdy as that is with the power of 
a work well done. But what were once living vessels, 
transmitting the vital sap, are now hard, wooden 
fibres, that live only by being surrounded with the 
fresh sapwood in which now is the tree's life. 

To be among the so-called heretics is, therefore, 
a good thing and a thing to be desired. It is good 
because it gives the joy of the freshest aspects and 
statements of truth, and also because it gives free- 
dom from the necessity of conformity. 

I do not say that it is a position of ease. Rather 
it is one of great responsibility, as well as privilege, 
to be among the organs of the newest inspiration. 
What consecration, what earnestness it imposes ; 
what prayer and watching ! It was from very near 
the cross that Jesus said, "I came into the world 
to bear witness to the truth." 

To bear witness to the truth in an unbelieving age 
was to be a martyr to the truth. But it was to be 
a divine power in the world ; a word of God in the 
flesh. 



230 TRUTH 

" In the beginning was the word." The world 
began with the forth-going of a thought. Breath- 
ing, seething, lightening into the chaos, it went 
forth, and chaos began slowly to range itself into 
cosmos. 

The word ; the forth-speaking of a thought, an 
idea, a truth, is the beginning of every new creation, 
or pulse of creation. It is .the inauguration of every 
new order of things ; it begins every new messianic 
reign, every coming of a better time. The darkness 
never comprehends it ; but always, to as many as 
receive it, it gives power to become sons of God. 

It is the beginning of the new heavens and the 
new earth. In slow syllables of years, in words of 
centuries, God utters his patient speech of truth, 
through human minds and human lips, as they can 
learn and utter it. The age looks coldly on ; per- 
haps persecutes and *slays the speaker ; the race 
takes to heart the word. 

Every revolution, every reformation, every new 
religious movement comes through the speech of 
some man, thoroughly in earnest. Some poor car- 
penter, it may be, or monk, or shoemaker, or printer, 
or scholar, faithful to the truth he sees ; speaking 
out what the minds and hearts of men were needing 
and yearning for. 

So through "the foolishness of preaching" has 
the power of God been made manifest. Men talk 
of truth being propagated by the sword. Drop the 
" s ; " it is by the word ! Take out the preaching of 
the Truth from the world, and what would History 
be and where the progress of the race ? 

Suppose those prophets and apostles, Hebrew, 



TRUTH 231 

Christian, Lutheran, Huguenot, Waldensian, Qua- 
ker, Unitarian, Abolitionist, — suppose that these 
had kept silence, when arbitrary powers in church 
and state commanded silence, and threatened penalty 
and inflicted it — where would the world be now ? 

Oh ! the might of truths held with earnest con- 
viction, spoken with simple sincerity and unfaltering 
courage, spoken in love ! But to " speak the truth 
in love " does not necessarily and always mean to 
speak it in mildness and gentleness, and so as to hurt 
no one's feelings or prejudices. Love is power, is 
energy. It is willing to hurt if so it may heal. To 
"speak the truth in love" means to speak it disin- 
terestedly, without self-reference, without malice ; 
but it may mean to speak it with the terrible power 
of heaven's pure lightning, that smites and rends 
the air, not to destroy but to purify it. 

There is no such powerful weapon against error 
and wrong as the simple truth. The abetters of 
wrong will, just as long as they can, smother free 
speech and discussion. 'Tis the natural instinct of 
self-defense. Let the reformer of wrongs take a les- 
son from that and remember that the truth, bravely 
and persistently told, is more powerful than any ex- 
aggeration. Whatever is overstated must at some 
time be taken back. Every argument that is not 
supported by the facts weakens its own side and 
plays into the hand of the opponent. 

Friends, let us seek the truth, love the truth, 
obey the truth. Let us be willing, let us be desir- 
ous, to know and see things as they are. Let us 
feel sure that it is always better to know the truth 
about anything whatever than to indulge in any de- 



232 TRUTH 

lusion, however pleasant. To know the truth, to 
trust the truth, to face the truth, to speak the 
truth, to bear the truth, — this is always the right, 
the safe, the brave, the best thing. Let us be will- 
ing and desirous to spread the truth as we see it, to 
do something for it, to take some trouble, to make 
some sacrifice, if there is need, to suffer something 
for it. Let us take to heart the consecration of 
Jesus, and feel that God has sent us into the world 
to bear witness in some way to the truth, as it is 
made known to us from time to time, — or what we 
earnestly believe to be that truth, — whether in large 
and public ways or in small and private ways. 

For one law of obligation and of reception, one 
reward of life, power, and joy, belongs to every form 
of truth ; belongs to simple veracity or true speak- 
ing, to simple honesty or true dealing, as well as to 
apostleship and martyrdom. Whoever in plainest 
and most commonplace ways is faithful to convic- 
tion, faithful to sincerity, faithful to principle, has 
begun to comprehend that power, that life, that joy. 

The mechanic who, from a principle of truthful- 
ness, does every part of his work well and thoroughly, 
whether others will know it or not, whether it will 
bring him more profit or not ; the tradesman who 
puts away the temptation of a dishonest dime or 
dollar which all about him take, and scorns every 
unfair advantage, every art of adulteration or decep- 
tion, however common ; the poor boy who goes home 
with a lighter heart and a lighter pocket because of 
the lost watch, or purse, or knife which he has re- 
stored to its owner, when he might have kept it him- 
self ; the little girl who has told the truth which 



TRUTH 233 

brought her some punishment or lost her some ex- 
pected pleasure, — these have all borne witness to 
the solemnity and supremacy of truth. They have 
all, in the elevation of spirit which has followed, and 
the sense of new power within them, entered into 
the life and the joy of saint, martyr, reformer, and 
saviour. 

They have all done something toward helping 
forward the world, toward bringing nearer that king- 
dom of heaven, that new order of society, that bet- 
ter time, wherein truth shall have overcome all false- 
hood and righteousness, all wrong ; that kingdom 
of God into which, said the seer of the Apocalypse, 
" Nothing shall enter which maketh a lie." 



OBEDIENCE 

All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. — Exodus 
xxiv. 7. 

Under every form of government obedience is an 
essential. It may be voluntary, or it may be com- 
pulsory ; but obedience there must be. If it is not 
rendered, or cannot be enforced, government is at 
an end. Anarchy ensues. From autocracy, or one 
man's rule, to the broadest democracy, or rule of 
the people; from the government of a despot to 
the government of laws, this one need runs through 
all, — obedience. Whatever may change, this must 
abide. If an unjust government be overthrown by 
disobedience, it must be because obedience to justice 
requires the overthrow ; and a new authority and 
allegiance must be at once established and obeyed. 

Not in civil government alone is this principle a 
requisite. Wherever numbers are gathered to live, 
to work together, obedience must exist. You cannot 
have a factory or a workshop, a bank or a school, 
without regulations and conformity to them. You 
cannot have a family or a home without obedience. 
The only thing you can have without obedience is 
chaos ; a confusion, a destruction, — you can have 
these. 

In all these things I have mentioned, and in all 
others like them, you get the ideal by an obedience 



OBEDIENCE 235 

willingly and joyfully rendered to commands in 
themselves just and beneficent. And perhaps the 
perfection of the ideal is obtained where the obe- 
dience has become habitual, organic, and so spon- 
taneous, and as we say unconscious ; where the 
ruling power and the ruled are pervaded by one 
spirit, are of one mind, one heart, one will. 

That this may be obtained, — and before it is 
attained, — there must be in the rightful authority 
the power of compulsion, of penalty, and perhaps of 
expulsion. But that compulsion becomes freedom 
just as soon as obedience is voluntarily rendered to 
an authority felt to be just and good. If it is your 
choice and will to obey, that obedience is liberty, 
the true and only liberty of the sons of God. 

We live in what we believe to be a God-governed 
universe. We look up reverently to One Supreme 
Power and Authority, which our minds, our hearts, 
our consciences, in their clearest and best moments 
devoutly recognize and bow before with willing 
confession and acceptance. This Supreme Power 
and Authority we come to believe to be worthy of 
our highest reverence, our fullest confession, our 
completest obedience, because we believe it to be in 
itself perfect Justice and perfect Love. This we 
believe, I say, in our best moments, and whatever 
may seem in any degree to make against this belief, 
we ascribe to our own ignorance and short-sighted- 
ness. And this Supreme Power, because it is Su- 
preme, claims rightfully our obedience, and because 
it is just and beneficent should receive our willing, 
our hearty, our glad obedience, as being our only 
safety and our true life. 



236 OBEDIENCE 

For, further, this Supreme Power, Justice, Love 
is akin to us in nature, is so like to the highest and 
best in us, — only far more high and far more good, 

— that we have learned to call it by the dear name 
of Father! And because of that kinship, because 
of that likeness which the kinship implies, — the 
likeness which is involved in the name of Father, — 
because of that, I say, we know that what He com- 
mands us can be only what our own souls in their 
best and highest moments command. His laws of 
right -doing are. the same laws that our own con- 
science imposes upon us when it is keen and 
enlightened. That is what we mean, — is it not ? 

— when we say that the divine laws, God's laws for 
us, are the laws of our own being. They are put 
into our being by this divine inheritance, this hered- 
ity from father to son. " Created, not made," said 
the old creeds, of Jesus whom they called God the 
Son; created, not made, we say of the spiritual 
nature of all men. Not made as, with hands, an 
artificer makes something outside of himself, as a 
sculptor makes a statue ; not thus made, but created 
by the going forth, the emanation, the outflowing of 
the Divine Spirit, acting indeed through the chan- 
nels of human ministry, but imparting a life that is 
more than mortal, which is at once human and yet 
more than human. 

Man's spirit — his reason, his conscience, his 
diviner affections, his nobler sentiments — being 
thus an emanation from God our Father, when we 
obey what is clearest, highest, best in our reason, 
heart, and conscience, we are obeying that God in 
us which is, so to speak, a part or a presence in us 



OBEDIENCE 237 

of the God who is so far above us. Above us, yes ; 
farther than thought can reach or imagination 
picture or dream ; yet so near us, so unspeakably 
near, so more than near ; yea, in profoundest rever- 
ence, yet in sweetest assurance we declare with all 
saints, dwelling within us ! His law for us, his 
commands for us, his will for us, written in our 
very being, in our very make. So that by obeying 
the inmost law of our nature, by being true to our 
nature, we are obeying God's law and fulfilling his 
commands. That is, we are making of ourselves 
what He made and meant us to be, his noble, 
worthy, upright, loving, obedient children. 

You must not misunderstand me when I speak of 
being true to our nature. I do not mean by that 
doing whatever comes into our minds, doing what- 
ever our wishes or desires or whims or appetites 
prompt. A perfected nature might do whatsoever it 
desired or wished, and do only what was noble, lofty, 
and pure. By being true to our nature, I mean 
being true to its capacities, living up to its possibili- 
ties, making the most and best of it. I mean being 
true to its law, not to its caprice, and impulse, and 
passion, and lawless freedom. I mean the living 
out of our nature in the line of its idea, its best 
development, the growing up toward a perfect and 
complete manhood. And that implies self-control 
and self-government, and the voluntary choice of 
good and the voluntary abstinence from every excess 
which is evil. It means the clear recognition of the 
order oi our nature ; that some things in it are higher, 
more precious, more eternal than other things ; and 
that the higher and the more important should be 



238 OBEDIENCE 

of supreme interest and should be more carefully 
looked after and more faithfully pursued. And 
when we have to choose between the two, — as we 
so often have to choose, — that we should make sure 
that we choose the higher and the more lasting. And 
when we have to sacrifice one to the other, — as 
we so often have to do, — that we should make sure 
that we hold by the higher, and let the lower go. 

In our nature, made up of often conflicting ele- 
ments as it is, before it has become adjusted by dis- 
cipline, it is the spiritual that has the rightful author- 
ity over the rest. The spirit commands, and the 
body is to obey and serve. It is the reason and the 
conscience and the high unselfish affections that 
have a right to the throne ; and all the rest should 
serve. But how often there is rebellion instead of 
allegiance ; how often there is willful resistance in- 
stead of willing obedience ! Who can look into his 
heart, who can look back upon his life, and not re- 
call some experience of this — with sorrow and with 
shame recall it ? Sometimes when he has stifled the 
voice of conscience, has put away or postponed the 
better impulse ; has chosen the lower instead of the 
higher pleasure ; has turned a deaf ear or a languid 
will to the call of duty ; has let some opportunity of 
doing right or doing good go by unused, through 
indolence or some one of the many forms of selfish- 
ness, when he has preferred ease before the taking 
of trouble, or self-indulgence before self-denial, 
when, in the comprehensive phrase of the prayer- 
book, he has "done the thing he ought not to have 
done, or left undone the thing he ought to have 
done " ? 



OBEDIENCE 239 

In all these things there has been a want of obedi- 
ence to the divine command, a refusal to do what 
God bade us to do ; or a doing of that which He 
forbade ; times when the will asserted not a genuine 
freedom, but a lawless independence. It was rebel- 
lion against his rightful authority ; his just and kind 
rule. And it brings with it sorrow and shame, moral 
disaster and loss. 

I have seen the look of sorrow that came over a 
mother's face, the tone of disappointment and pain 
that filled her voice, as she spoke of a daughter's will- 
fulness and disobedience. Was the daughter herself 
happy in that disobedience, in that willful assertion 
of independence ? There was pain in both hearts. 
Not only is pain given by disobedience, pain is felt ; 
for the disobedience is not only to the outward 
authority, but to the inward sense, which exists 
where conscience and the better feeling are not 
smothered, the sense that the willfulness is disobedi- 
ence to a rightful authority, to the wish and will of 
& friend. Whatever pleasure may have been hoped 
for from the indulgence was marred by a secret pain. 
And that pain could only be healed by penitence 
and confession. 

There is no peace, no happiness, in a family where 
obedience is not. I do not speak of the tyrannical 
will, the domineering spirit which sometimes, in the 
head of a family or in the head of an institution or 
government, changes his rightful authority into a 
despotism. To resist that may be a virtue. " Re- 
sistance to tyrants is obedience to God," said our 
forefathers. But I speak of that authority, in the 
parent or the ruler, whose ground is in superior 



240 OBEDIENCE 

knowledge of what is right and best ; the authority 
founded in justice and true desire for the good of 
the child or subject. That is the only authority 
which rules the family of God's children. Our 
Father is supremely wise, supremely just, supremely 
kind. His commands seek our best good. And for 
this reason they claim our complete and our willing 
obedience ; the acknowledgment of our hearts ; the 
surrender of our wills. 

Religion teaches us that God is infinitely near to 
us ; that He, the Spirit, may be an indwelling spirit ; 
that He seeks ever to become such in every child of 
his and to rule there as an indwelling spirit, not an 
external authority. He respects our freedom, which 
within its narrow limits is real. He gives us choice ; 
He allows us to learn by mistakes and errors ; He 
does not arbitrarily compel us. But He never leaves 
us ; He never ceases to press for entrance into our 
souls ; He is momentarily waiting to inspire and 
quicken and empower us. He stands at the door 
and knocks, He will not force the door. He who 
might command, entreats ; He pleads that we will 
let Him in. Let Him in ! Him to whom we ought 
to joy to open all doors, whom we might well en- 
treat to come in, were He unwilling ! For his com- 
ing into the house of any soul is the coming of peace 
there, of order, of power, of joy, and fullness of life. 
But the conditions of his incoming, his indwelling, 
are first our willingness and seeking ; and secondly 
our obedience. If we do not desire that what is best 
and noblest and divinest in us should rule in us ; if 
we do not desire spiritual life and strength, spiritual 
peace and joy, because we are absorbed in seeking 



OBEDIENCE 24 1 

and getting outward things, or in finding the way to 
indulge some passion, then the Spirit cannot enter 
our souls ; the rooms are preoccupied with other 
guests, with bodily appetites and passions, with tem- 
pers not heavenly, with purposes and aims not di- 
vine, with selfishness and not with self-surrender, 
with evil will and not with good will. Then truth, 
justice, love, holiness; to be true, to be honest, to be 
benevolent, to be pure and noble, — these are not 
our supreme wish and aim ; but to be rich, or to be 
comfortable, or to be amused, or to have our own 
way ; to gratify some form of self-seeking. God is 
truth, is justice, is unselfish love, is purity ; He 
can be welcomed only where these things are wel- 
comed, and where whatever makes against them is 
resolutely sacrificed and put away. He will not 
come where He is not welcomed. He will wait 
until the soul, taught by bitter experience the hol- 
lowness and unsatisfaction and weariness of the 
selfish and lower life, shall begin to yearn for some- 
thing more satisfying ; shall begin to listen to the 
voice that still pleads, and forever will plead, in its 
better self ; to the voice which is God's voice ; and 
will open the door, and cry in penitence and re- 
morse, and longing for redemption, Come in, O 
noblest, dearest Friend, whom I have kept so long 
waiting ; whom I am not worthy to have under my 
roof ; come in, if Thou art willing to enter a soul so 
hardened, so stained, so long ungrateful, so often 
willful, yet so needing Thee ! Rule Thou in me ; 
make me Thy servant ! 

But it is not desire only that will bring God to dwell 
within us — that is but the first opening of the door. 



242 OBEDIENCE 

The desire, whether of longing or of penitence, may 
be but a transient feeling, if it be not made steadfast 
and abiding by something else. 

And that something else is Obedience. That fixes 
the desire, the fleeting feeling, into a principle and 
motive power; that turns prayer into life. Unless we 
open a channel outward into action, the inward, en- 
tering channels will become clogged and closed. You 
cannot get much pure air into a room unless you open 
a way out and establish a current through. God seeks 
to enter us that He may flow through us, an efficient 
working power of good. He lives to act ; He lives 
to do good. He asks our surrendered wills to work 
through and with. As we put forth our wills in do- 
ing something that He wills to have done, that is, in 
doing something that is right and just and true and 
beneficent and helpful to the world ; as we put forth 
our wills in the direction of his will, that will with 
its energy reinforces and flows through them. 

" Our wills are ours — we know not how — 
Our wills are ours — to make them Thine." 

It is not, then, a mere passive surrender to our bet- 
ter feelings which is the avenue of God's entrance 
into us ; it is not a mere submission to his will ; it 
is an active surrender, an offering of our powers, our 
faculties, our affections, and our wills in all their 
strength to his in-working and through-working, to 
the doing of his will. In a word, it is Obedience. 
Without that, our submission might become no more 
than a passive self-indulgence, a luxury of feeling 
which some people mistake for the spiritual life. It 
would soon become spiritual torpor, if not put forth 
in obedient action. 



OBEDIENCE 243 

There are times, indeed, when all we can do is to 
submit, to bear, to wait. To do that takes all our 
strength sometimes ; under the presence of heavy 
sorrows, or of pain, or bodily weakness and disabil- 
ity. Then it is enough. Then God comes into the 
heart that is willing to bear, to suffer, to be set aside 
from action ; comes in as a consoler, a comforter, 
a strengthener of the heart to bear ; comes in as a 
cheerful visitor into a chamber of grief or pain, a pres- 
ence there of uplifting hope, of tranquillity, peace ; 
and says, " They also serve who only stand and wait. 
I too, thy God, wait as well as work ; I am patient as 
well as mighty. In waiting and patience be thou my 
child. By and by I shall have work for thee to do ; 
rest now." 

But it is seldom that there is no work to be done. 
The invalid's chamber is often a busy scene. You 
think now of some who from the bed have been 
teachers, not only of learning and books, but of 
patience and cheerful unselfishness ; have made and 
carried out plans of beneficence. And to most of 
us the obedience must be in doing ; and in putting 
away from our thought, our desires, whatever would 
hinder us from doing God's will ; or whatever would 
darken our knowledge of what that will is. For 
obedience is not only a power, but a light. We learn 
the way by walking in it. 

I know that sometimes, even when we want to do 
right, the way is not entirely clear to us. But I am 
confident that just in proportion as we form the habit 
of doing the thing that reason, conscience, our high- 
est affection urge ; in place of that which momentary 
desire, or mere impulse or passion, or any selfish 



244 OBEDIENCE 

motive prompts ; just in that proportion will reason, 
conscience, and the spiritual affections become keen- 
sighted and safe guides. How often, when we are in 
doubt, action alone can decide, either showing us our 
mistake or justifying our choice ; a warning or a 
confirmation for the future. 

We have been wont to call conscience the voice 
of God. We ought to regard reason and the higher 
affections as equally his voice. Or to believe that 
his voice speaks through them all, when they are 
fairly used. When they are fairly used, I say. For 
you will at once have thought of men who believed 
they were serving God in doing something which 
a clear mind perceives was no will of his ; of men 
whose consciences have driven them to acts of per- 
secution, cruelty, revenge, murder. God told them 
to do it, they said, and they obeyed. You will think 
of Paul verily believing that he was serving God in 
persecuting the Christians ; of Abraham believing 
that Jehovah commanded him to slay his own son ; 
of prophets, in the name of God, commanding the 
slaughter of women and children in war ; of the 
assassin of our President pleading a divine inspira- 
tion for his deed. I can only say that even if these 
men were sincere, as they all may have been, they 
did not fairly use their conscience, because they did 
not enlighten it by reason, and control it by human 
affections. A man ought to suspect as morbid and 
diseased a conscience, or any inner impulse, which 
urged him to a deed of violence or crime. The voice 
of God and his inspiration must be looked for in the 
things that are rational, just, and humane ; for He is 
Wisdom, Righteousness, and Love, and these quali- 



OBEDIENCE 245 

ties must be stamped on all his commands. " God 
does not choose fools as his instruments," said 
truly that assassin at Washington. Neither does He 
choose irrational, presumptuous, egotistic, unjust, or 
inhuman men. 

Obedience to the highest and best thought and 
feeling in us, — this is the secret of power, because 
it is recognizing the true sovereignty of our faculties ; 
and because it brings the co-working and inworking 
of God, of whose life our highest and best faculties 
are the channel. Obedience is the secret of light, 
because it is yielding ourselves to the leading of the 
highest and best. It is the secret of freedom be- 
cause it is following the inward law of our nature, 
which is one with the divine nature, which frees us 
from the hindrances and bondage of an ill-adjusted 
spirit. It is the secret of peace, because it is ac- 
knowledging the divine order, saving us from con- 
tradictions, and allying us to the sacred calmness 
and steadfastness of God. 

1882. 



"WE KNOW IN PART" 

I listened lately to a course of lectures by one of 
our leading men of science. Amid all the interest- 
ing facts stated, amid all the knowledge imparted, 
came every now and then the confession, " I do not 
know," " I cannot tell you," " Of this we are entirely 
in the dark," " Here our knowledge stops." These 
avowals of ignorance interested me as much, almost, 
as his assertions of knowledge. Of course, honesty 
and frankness demand one as much as the other, 
and both might seem equally natural and easy, if we 
did not know that they are not so. To say that we 
know is a satisfaction, and may be a pride. To say 
that we do not know cannot be a pleasure, and may 
be a mortification. To those who are looked up to 
as fountains of knowledge must especially come 
sometimes the temptation to make themselves ora- 
cles, to assume a kind of infallibility ; the fear of 
losing their prestige by any confession of ignorance, 
and sometimes to cover up with vague words the 
want of knowledge. 

But if it require courage, as it sometimes must, 
to say, " I do not know," that courage also secures 
respect. For its own sake, because it is courage, 
and because it is truthfulness. And also because 
we feel, now, that we can put greater confidence in 
the "I know." 



WE KNOW IN PART 247 

It is just as we respect a man who will say, " I 
was mistaken," or, " I was in the wrong," and even 
put the greater confidence in him than if he claimed 
infallibility or impeccability. Unless, indeed, he be 
so often mistaken, so often in the wrong, as to show 
that he cannot be generally trusted. 

" The certainty of Science " is a phrase often used. 
A book might be written on the uncertainties of sci- 
ence. The facts of nature cannot lie. No, but man's 
observation of those facts may be inaccurate or im- 
perfect. Above all, his inferences from those facts, 
his theories about them, may be plentifully infected 
with error. The sciolist, the smatterer in science, 
jumps to hasty conclusions and invests them with an 
assurance which they have no claim to. He seizes 
upon some fascinating theory that falls in with his 
ways of thinking, or with some prejudice of his ; 
counts it as proved because some man of science has 
enunciated it as probable or possible ; and proceeds 
to denounce all who do not receive it as prejudiced 
and obstinate. The newest and the latest — it must 
be the truest and best ! But the true man of science 
holds all theories long in suspense, testing them 
again and again by careful observation and collation 
of facts, by verification and re-verification. Nay, all 
theories that seem established he holds lightly, as 
willing to give them up should new facts refute 
them. For he remembers how often physical science 
has had to give up theories once firmly believed and 
taught with assurance and with the prestige of great 
names. He knows that science is progressive, not 
fixed. He remembers that we know "in part." 

There was a time when the best informed geolo- 



248 WE KNOW IN PART 

gists believed that the waters of the earth had been 
once lifted up above the summits of lofty mountains, 
because marine shells were found there. But now 
it is believed that the mountain summits have been 
lifted up from the ocean bed, bearing with them the 
shells. The observed facts are the same — the in- 
ference has changed ; yet the untenable theory was 
once held with assurance ; the shells were at that 
height, the waters must have been there ; the logic 
seemed unanswerable. Bacon declared that Galileo's 
assumption of the movement of the earth could not 
be admitted. Newton believed that light consisted 
of particles shot out from luminous substances, and 
the doctrine was taught in all text-books as un- 
doubted fact, on the authority of his great name. 
When Young ventured to speak of undulations, he 
was put down, as Tyndall tells us. But now undula- 
tions are established ; we have waves of light, not 
rays, and we are not afraid to differ from so great an 
authority as Newton. He knew more than any in 
his day in these matters ; but even he knew in part. 
Every careful scientific man distinguishes between 
his opinions and his knowledge. His opinion he 
holds with more or less confidence, according to the 
fullness and strength of the grounds upon which it is 
founded ; and he may hold it sometimes with strong- 
est assurance, by a kind of prophetic instinct, seeing 
ahead of the proofs, divining with confidence that 
which is not yet established by experiment, as the 
skillful chessplayer sees through the game before 
it is finished upon the board. Still, what is yet 
opinion he does not put forward to the world in the 
same way as that which has been fully verified. 



WE KNOW IN PART 249 

And we others must always distinguish between 
opinion and knowledge. The mere opinion of a 
scientific man is, in his own department, of value 
and of a certain authority. But we must not receive 
it or speak of it as something sure and established. 
An hypothesis, — like that, for instance, of evolution 
by natural selection and the survival of the fittest, 
— fascinating as it is, must not be taken up as we 
take up established fact, for it is still only hypothesis, 
however ingenious, however probable, however satis- 
factory — it is not yet by any means proved. We 
must not speak of it as the latest result of science, 
but as the latest speculation, an opinion yet to be 
established by fact. And we must not count all 
people bigots who do not accept it, or who bring 
forward arguments against it, for there are argu- 
ments against it as well as for it, and some very im- 
portant links in the argument for it are yet missing. 

The value of an hypothesis is this, that it serves 
as a thread upon which to arrange and coordinate 
facts ; it is a divining or suspecting of the law which 
unites them, which crystallizes them into order. It 
sets men to collecting and studying facts more 
ardently, on one side and on the other ; it secures 
the benefits, while it incurs the dangers, of partisan- 
ship. 

There are those who, seeing these dangers, and 
themselves, perhaps, little inclined to speculation, 
believe that science in any department should limit 
itself entirely to the search for and statement of 
facts. But this cannot be done. Besides the observ- 
ing faculties, man has the idealizing faculties, and 
cannot help exercising them. The two do not always 



25O WE KNOW IN PART 

exist strongly in the same person, but they always 
exist. The mind of man cannot rest contented with 
knowing the facts. By a native, an irresistible im- 
pulse it is driven to arrange and classify the facts ; 
to look beyond them to a law and a principle and a 
cause. " The thing is so." Yes, but why and how 
is it so ? How came it so ? What are its connec- 
tions with other things that are ? What is its pro- 
cess ? To what does it tend ? 

The best theory is that which is based upon the 
largest accumulation and most careful observation 
of facts. Separated from these, theory wanders into 
fancy and illusion. But fact, on the other hand, 
unidealized by theory or principle,. remains dry and 
prosaic and unfruitful. In a picture, the painter 
must set out from a close study of nature and a rev- 
erence for her facts ; else he will end only in unreal 
and unsubstantial fancies and vagaries. But to the 
actual facts he must add a sentiment of ideality from 
his own soul, or his picture will be hard and literal. 
For there is a soul in nature which his own soul 
must perceive, as well as a fact in nature which his 
eye must see, and his understanding know, and his 
hand depict. 

So in any science, whether of physics or morals 
or religion, with the most accurate and conscien- 
tious study and acceptance of fact must be united 
the ideal perception of principle and law that we 
may have the fullness of truth. For truth is some- 
thing more than matter of fact. It is the ideal that 
is within and beyond the fact. Shall I say that truth 
is born of the marriage of thought and fact, their 
organic, fruitful union ? Divorce them, and thought, 



WE KNOW IN PART 25 I 

alone, runs into unproductive speculation, brain- 
spinning, and dreams, a wasted force. Fact, alone, 
remains unvivified and sterile, without force. It 
simply exists, but does not move. 

If a public reform is to be made in education, in 
labor ; in the treatment of the poor, of the criminal, 
the insane ; in sanitary conditions, — a legislative 
commission may collect the facts. But these, when 
collected, may be buried in blue book and commit- 
tee report, and nothing come of them. Some con- 
science must feci the ideal wrong; some imagina- 
tion must conceive the ideal right that is to replace 
it. Some clear mind must see the way, and some 
warm heart and vivid will make the passage from 
one to the other. 

Even the most practical and material improve- 
ment or invention owes its existence to this union. 
The new plow, or printing-press, or reaping-machine, 
or car-coupler was an idea, a dream, in some man's 
mind before it become a fact in wood and iron. It 
is curious to think of the long ancestry which con- 
nects an ocean steamer of our day with the hol- 
lowed tree in which our progenitor ventured upon 
the waters. 

So the world advances ; and as the more and more 
nearly perfect invention, art, science, laws, institu- 
tions, governments, society, come in their turn, that 
which is in part is done away, having served its tem- 
porary end. So the new earth descends perpetually 
out of the heavens — of thought, of idea. And, more 
and more completely and fully, God, who is the Per- 
fect, comes to dwell on earth and make his taber- 
nacle with men. 



252 WE KNOW IN PART 

The perfect is God. The ideal of the perfect, 
the striving after it in the human soul, is its sense 
of God, is its yearning for Him, is Religion. The 
religious sentiment is the idealistic sentiment. It 
is the conception of a better than we see. It per- 
ceives an Invisible under the visible ; an Eternal 
under the changing ; a Spiritual under the material ; 
a Perfect through the imperfect. It discovers in 
nature not haphazard, but a Unity of Power amid 
the variety of its forces ; a law of orderly progress 
as the method of its growth. We name these God's 
Presence there. 

I was once in a cornpany where the conversation 
turned upon the efforts of certain religionists to 
reconcile the letter of the Bible with the statements 
of science. A man of science who was present 
remarked upon the futility of the attempt ; for, said 
he, one of the sides of the question is continually 
changing. I supposed that he meant biblical inter- 
pretation. But no ; he meant science. If they 
should succeed, he went on to say, in making the 
Scriptures agree with science now, in a few years 
science would have changed so much that the agree- 
ment would no longer exist, and a new attempt at 
reconcilement would be needed. 

But an element of change need not be an element 
of changeableness, as we understand that word. That 
is, it may be only an element of progress, of steady 
and continual advance. We do not call a man 
changeable who, having set out for a certain city, 
walks steadily toward it, though his road be a wind- 
ing one, and though his feet be continually changing 
their position. 



WE KNOW IN PART 253 

It is as true of theology, or religious science, as 
of any other, that it consists of theory (or hypothesis) 
and of fact. Only it has heretofore had a very much 
larger infusion of the element of pure speculation, 
not proceeding from facts nor verified by them. 
Certainly a great many accepted theological theories 
seem to be merely the application of a rigid logic 
to a purely assumed premise. The Augustinian or 
Calvinist doctrine of total depravity — could it face 
the facts a moment ? Are all the men you meet every 
day really without any good in them, altogether "in- 
clined to evil, and that continually " ? Did you ever 
meet one man who had no good whatever in him ? 
The doctrine of the infallible inspiration of the Bible 
as God's word — what fact has that to rest upon ? 
The doctrine of miracles ? of everlasting torments 
of men dying in sin ? 

As there could be no true physical science till the 
speculations of the schoolmen of the Middle Ages 
gave way to the Baconian Induction from carefully 
observed fact, so there can be no true theology till a 
like change has taken place in that department of 
thought. And the facts of theology are the facts of 
human nature, the experiences of the human soul, 
and the motives and actions of human life. But, not 
waiting for all the facts to be gathered in so as to 
remove all doubt from the understanding, the soul, 
by its spiritual, prophetic instinct, seeing beyond the 
proof, divines with certainty that which is not yet 
fully demonstrated. While the understanding waits 
for scientific proof, the soul sees by direct vision. 
And the God who, to the understanding, must re- 
main an inference, to the spiritual sense is a con- 
scious Presence. 



254 WE KNOW IN PART 

But Theology must not only proceed from fact ; 
it must be verified by experiment. In other words, 
it must be tested by use. We must put our theory 
into practice if we would know thoroughly whether 
it is true. Else it will wander off into airy, unfruit- 
ful speculation, and nothing come of it. Our reli- 
gious meditation, even, which is one avenue of spirit- 
ual truth, must be balanced by the facts of life and 
the demands of duty, or it will become dreamy or 
morbid. A purely abstract conception of duty, even, 
may be virtually untrue for us, if it be not corrected 
by a recognition of our limitations and our possi- 
bility. "Be perfectly good" — the absolute state- 
ment — must be modified for a while into "Be as 
good as you can." Ah, that will be found a suffi- 
cient task! That act of mine — was it as noble as 
it might have been? That word of mine — was it as 
unreservedly true and honest ? Was I as generous, 
as self-forgetful as I know I might be ? Did I put 
forth all the energy I had to the good deed ? Did 
I resist the temptation as I might have done ? Did 
I do fully the good that was in my power ? 

We need continually to remind ourselves of the 
insufficiency of a religion that is theory and dream 
but not deed, not organized into life ; just as much 
as to see the inadequacy of one which is ritual and 
observance and not inwardly being just and true and 
good. 

We know in part ; that belongs to our finiteness 
and imperfection. To remember it ought to make 
us humble, and careful not to dogmatize, not to in- 
sist upon imposing an opinion on others. 

We know in part. But that is not to say that we 



WE KNOW IN PART 255 

know nothing. The part we do know we may know 
accurately, if we have used our minds fairly. It is 
the beginning of a knowledge that will grow. You 
know a language in part when you have learned its 
grammar ; if you have done that thoroughly, you 
have a firm footing for further progress. 

We know in part. You remember what has been 
said of late of the impossibility of our knowing any- 
thing of God, save that He is and that He is un- 
knowable. That we cannot fully comprehend Him 
is easily admitted. But to know that God is — 
must it not include this, that there is an Absolute 
Power and Truth and Right, a Perfect Goodness ? — 
for that is what we mean by the word God. And 
this is already knowing much more than that He is 
unknowable, a mere background of mysterious dark- 
ness. We know Him in part ; in small part, indeed ; 
and all our eternal progress may be occupied in 
knowing more of Him. But the part we do know 
may be real and the beginning of a knowledge that 
shall forever grow, the deepest joy of our unending 
life. 

We know in part. But that part, I say, may be 
real knowledge. Because we know only in part, and 
our knowledge is surrounded by a vast sphere of 
uncertainty and half knowledge, we are not, there- 
fore, doomed to perpetual skepticism. " If we are 
not certain of anything, how are we certain that we 
are not certain ? " Perhaps there is nothing that we 
completely know, but we do know. Perhaps there 
is nothing about which the inquisitive intellect may 
not suggest a doubt. How do I know that I stand 
here speaking, that you sit there hearing? How 



256 WE KNOW IN PART 

foolish to insist upon a definition of " knowledge " 
which will land us in not knowing our own existence ! 
We know those things which our rational faculties, 
rightly used, inform us of. And the validity of 
those faculties is the unproved assumption, the act 
of faith, which must be beneath all our knowledge. 

We know in part. But of many things which we 
do not wholly know we have a practical certainty 
which suffices us for action. 

We know in part. Not a doom is this, but a per- 
petual and quickening invitation to make that part 
ever greater, and win more and more into the sphere 
of our knowledge. We have a universe to explore, 
an unlimited life to explore it in. A perpetual and 
never-ending delight of learning. Lessing said that 
if God should offer him on the one hand truth, on 
the other the search after truth, he should take the 
latter. 

Every Sunday morning as the bells ring the hour, 
the congregations gather to their several churches, 
each full of confidence in its special peculiarities of 
opinion as the truth which the world needs, and 
must accept, and be saved by. They know in part, 
though they may mistake that part for the whole. 
Each, doubtless, makes some contribution to the 
common stock of thought, and urges something 
which the others may pass by. Yet the truth lies, 
most likely, not in what is special to any of them, 
but in that which is common to all. The represen- 
tatives of reforms urge each his special movement as 
supremely important and even all-including. They 
know in part. But the world gets on by partial 
movements of partial men, absorbed for the time in 



WE KNOW IN PART 257 

one preoccupying thought, whose necessary narrow- 
ness gives intensity of action. 

Men will go where their sympathies lead them, to 
hear mainly that of which they are already convinced. 
Perhaps we should be wise to go to that of which we 
know the least, or in regard to which we may have 
prejudice rather than sympathy. If so, we might, 
with better understanding, have wider charity. For 
we, too, know in part ; let us never forget this. Let 
us be hospitable to the new, and not bigoted against 
the old. Let us be thankful for that earnestness 
which makes men seek to spread the truth as they 
believe it ; to right the wrongs which touch their 
consciences ; to bring their helpful sympathy to the 
aid of the neglected, the suffering, the fallen ; their 
knowledge to removing the causes of vice and mis- 
ery and crime. 

Let us keep our hearts free from indifference, 
unbelief, contempt. Not by these can we live ; but 
by the faith that is the spring of earnest effort, by 
the hope that overcomes discouragement, by the 
love that beareth all and accomplisheth all, because 
it is greatest of all. 

We know in part. That limitation we must accept 
and profit by. We might wish it otherwise — we 
sometimes do, when our way is not clear. But do 
we use and live up to the light we have ? Ah, 
friends, must we not all confess that oftener it is not 
that we do not know what we ought to do, but that 
we have not the manhood, the courage, the earnest- 
ness, the self-denial to do it ! 

We know in part. Let us "do the best we know." 
That is all that will be required of us. 
1873- 



LOVE TO GOD 

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all 
thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great command- 
ment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself. — Matthew xxii. 37-39. 

These two commandments are often said to con- 
tain the essence of Christianity. In the New Tes- 
tament accounts they are quoted as containing the 
essence of Judaism. In one of these accounts (that 
of Luke), they are said to have been quoted by a 
Jewish teacher of the law, when appealed to by 
Jesus to say what he thought the most important in- 
junctions of that law. He selected these two, — one 
from Deuteronomy, one from Leviticus, as in his 
opinion containing the two essential ideas of the 
Jewish religion. Just as Confucius, centuries be- 
fore, being asked what was the sum and substance 
of one of the Chinese sacred books, answered, " The 
sum of the whole book is this : Have no depraved 
thoughts ; do not even think that which is evil." 

Whether this summing up of the Law was really 
made by Jesus or made by some Jewish lawyer and 
only approved by Jesus, we shall never know. For 
though the incident might have occurred twice in 
these two ways, it is of course far more probable 
that it is one incident, which in being handed down 
from mouth to mouth fell into these two shapes. 

Nor is it important to know which was the true 



LOVE TO GOD 259 

account. Either of them shows that Christianity is 
but a continuation of Judaism ; an " evolution " from 
it, if you will ; a fulfillment of it, as Jesus said him- 
self ; not a new religion, but a filling out, a carrying 
out, of the old religion of his country. Believing 
himself the Messiah, so long expected, now come, if 
they could only receive him for such, he taught, as 
the condition of following him into the blessings of 
the Kingdom, the best and highest of the moral and 
devout teachings of the Old Testament ; the essen- 
tial piety and righteousness ; releasing these from 
crude and primitive conceptions, freeing them from 
corruptions and accretions, the "traditions of men," 
which had gathered about them. This seems to be 
true evolution, the saving and containing the essen- 
tial life of a thing and putting it into a more perfect 
form. It is an instance, as it seems to me, which 
shows that Jesus had not any idea of establishing 
a new religion, or a new church, but aimed only to 
purify and perfect the old. He was, as much as 
Paul, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He could say that 
he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel. And it is really owing to Paul that Chris- 
tianity, in being carried to the Gentiles, escaped 
remaining a Jewish sect, which the other disciples 
would have made it. 

" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
mind, and all thy heart, and all thy strength." 

Let me for a moment call your attention to this 
word love applied to Jehovah in this Jewish Scrip- 
ture. It is so common to hear that, to the Jews, 
God was only a terrible, mighty being, who could be 
approached only with fear ; and that Christianity 



260 LOVE TO GOD 

had for the first time taught men to love God. 
Here, centuries before Jesus was born, the Jewish 
people were commanded to love their God. And 
though he was represented often as a jealous, aven- 
ging, destroying Deity, yet how often in the Old 
Testament we read of Him as long-suffering, and 
compassionate, and full of goodness and mercy, and 
forgiving sins. Men are called upon to fear or rev- 
erence Him. But in this very book of Deuteronomy, 
at least eight times is love to God spoken of; and 
to love the Lord is the injunction of many of the 
Psalms. 

" Thou shalt love thy God." And what is love ? 
Is it not a powerful and warm attraction ; is it not 
a devotion ; is it not to have one often in your 
thoughts ? Is it not to feel an unspeakable near- 
ness, an inner sympathy ? Is it not to find fuller 
life in that presence, and great joy in it, and a beau- 
tiful peace ? Is it not to wish to please and to serve 
the one whom we love ? Is it not to be of one 
mind and one heart and one will ? These things 
love is, in its human forms ; these things it is in its 
higher and purely spiritual form when directed 
toward God. 

To be of one mind, one heart, one will, I said ; 
and that just corresponds to the words of my text. 
" Thou shalt love thy God with thy mind." What 
does that mean ? 

It means first that we must love to think of Him ; 
that we must make the thought of Him a familiar 
one ; that we must often turn our mind toward that 
highest object about which human thought can busy 
itself. Not that human thought can compass Him ; 



LOVE TO GOD 26 1 

but the reason, or thinking power, which is an en- 
dowment from Him, is capable of forming some 
approach to knowledge of Him ; and as we use this 
God-given power, it will bring us to more and more 
complete apprehension, to more and more worthy 
idea, of Him. The reason of man, because it is a 
gift of God, because, to speak more truly, it is a part 
of Him, his indwelling spirit in us, is able, therefore, 
in part to know Him. Do not listen, then, to any 
who disparage or deny the use of reason in religion. 
Believe that it is your duty to use your reason in 
religion. For reason is that faculty in man which 
is a representative of the Divine Mind, which cor- 
responds to truth in God. And just as a religion 
which has no warmth of feeling in it is imperfect, 
just as a religion which is not manifested in life 
and put forth in right conduct is imperfect, so a 
religion which is not -reasonable, which is without a 
basis of clear thought, is imperfect also. Our minds 
must be satisfied as well as our hearts. 

Now, that our minds may be satisfied, we must 
try to get as clear and as true thoughts of God as 
we can ; as clear and as true ideas of his being, his 
way and methods, as we can ; as clear and as true 
ideas, for instance, of his nature as the Infinite 
Spirit ; of his providence, or the ways in which He 
cares for man, not by occasional and special inter- 
ference, nor by direct and minute appointments, but 
by universal and constant presence. 

We must try to get, again, as clear and rational 
ideas as we can upon prayer, or our access and 
approach to God, and upon the real way in which 
God answers prayer, so that we may know better 



262 LOVE TO GOD 

what we ought to ask for ; and may have only rea- 
sonable expectations of what we may obtain, and 
how we may obtain it. 

To love God with the mind is, then, to desire sin- 
cerely to get free from all unworthy and supersti- 
tious ideas and expectations in regard to Him. It is 
to desire to know, just as nearly as we can, what his 
ways are, and his methods of action ; his methods of 
dealing with us, as we say ; that we may accept these 
and conform ourselves to them. To love God with 
the mind is to desire earnestly to know the truth 
about Him, and not to live in any delusions, how- 
ever comforting and pleasant they may be for the 
moment. 

For we may be sure that nothing can be so good 
for us as the truth, or that degree of truth which 
we are capable of reaching. In that truth, seen as 
clearly as the best use of our -minds can grasp it, we 
shall be sure to find all the strength and all the com- 
fort we need beyond ourselves. However comfort- 
ing the half-truth may be, be sure that the whole 
truth will be more comforting when we have received 
and conformed ourselves to it ; though we have to 
let the half-truth go upon which we so trustingly 
leaned, as the boy lets go the life-preserver or the 
teacher's rope, to find that the water will safely hold 
him up. 

To love God with the mind, then, is to use the 
mind with which He has endowed us ; to trust it, and 
believe that rightly and fairly used it will not lead 
us astray. It is to use the mind, which God has 
implanted in us as the faculty of knowing, reverently 
and carefully and sincerely, as we ought always to 
use his gifts. 



LOVE TO GOD 26$ 

It is, further, to prize all real knowledge of every 
kind ; to despise sham knowledge, and not to rest 
content with superficial knowledge. It is to believe 
that all knowledge of nature and man is in a real 
sense a knowledge of God. He is manifested in 
nature and in man ; He has imprinted his laws in the 
constitution of nature and of human nature. His 
laws are the laws of nature ; his will is done in so far 
as we give faithful obedience to the order of nature 
in our bodily life, and to the order of human nature 
in our intellectual, moral, social, and spiritual life. 

Finally, to love God with the mind is to feel the 
sacredness, the divineness of truth ; to be sensitive 
to every warping or violation of it ; to every form of 
lie whether in speech or in action. It is to have the 
courage to put away every form of deception, whether 
the temptation be to kindliness, or fear of conse- 
quences, or hope of profit. Things as they are> the 
reality of things, deeper than appearances, than all 
pretenses — this is the truth. What arc the exact 
facts of the case ? This is the important question 
necessary to be settled before we form any theories. 
Science, in this, may teach a lesson to religion. 
The truth of things is the thought of God in things, 
the element of reality in them ; it is God in them, 
and that we are to reverence and love above all 
things else. And wherever we love the truth, honor 
the truth, make sacrifice for the truth, we are loving 
God with our minds. 

To love God with our hearts — what does that 
mean ? We all believe that we know what' that is. 
To most persons it is the whole of religion. Its true 
name is not religion, but piety, which, precious though 



264 LOVE TO GOD 

it be, is but a part of religion. It is all the feeling 
that goes out toward God. It is religion as a senti- 
ment. 

And what a powerful sentiment, what an ardent 
feeling, what a deep consolation, what a moving 
passion it has been in the hearts of men and in the 
world's history, in its various pure and impure forms ! 
It includes reverence and trust and affection. 

To love God with our hearts is to reverence Him, 
for reverence is one of the highest feelings of the 
human heart. It is the very beginning of religion 
there, the looking up to something higher than our- 
selves. Reverence not only looks up ; it lifts up. 
It elevates us ; it is a humility which ennobles us. 
And the man who has no reverence ; the man who 
never looks up to something higher than himself ; 
the man who, therefore, has no humility ; whatever 
other good qualities he may have misses his best 
quality, that which crowns all ; and whatever good 
he may do, his work will fall short of the best, and 
his character will miss its true refinement, and his 
influence its highest stamp. 

I am grieved when I find religious reformers, in 
protesting against or in throwing off religious super- 
stitions, using rude attacks, flings, and ridicule, and 
so helping to destroy, not only the superstition, but 
the reverent and tender feeling beneath it, upon 
which religion so greatly depends. 

It was said of Emerson, that he took down men's 
idols in so tender a way that it seemed an act of 
worship — the idolatry was gone, but the reverence 
remained unharmed. 

If your hearers are low down, you will not help 



LOVE TO GOD 265 

them by becoming low yourself ; you will help them 
by touching some finer and better feeling in them, 
and lifting them up by that. There may be humor 
which is not irreverent, which is allied to tender- 
ness and seriousness. There is also a humor which 
is buffoonery, fatal to true devoutness, fatal to rev- 
erence. So there is a wit which is cold and sharp, 
and deadly to all true and finer sentiment. 

Again, to love God with our hearts is to trust 
Him, to confide in Him. And to trust Him is not 
merely to be sure of his help and support and sym- 
pathy. It is also to be sure that to obey his com- 
mandment, to follow his law, revealed in mind and 
conscience, will always be safe, will always be best. 
It is to feel that it will always be safe to do what is 
right and just, to speak what is true and sincere and 
kind. It is to follow Him where we cannot see the 
way, upon the dark path of trial and sorrow ; it is to 
do hard, self-denying duty, listening only to the voice 
within, which is the voice of God heard before us in 
the darkening distance ; laying aside all fear in the 
sense that He is there, in the assurance that He 
will guard where He hath led. It is to believe that 
He has better things in store for us than those 
which He asks us to give up ; an inward and spir- 
itual, to replace the outward and visible ; a real, to 
replace the apparent ; an eternal, to replace the 
transient. 

A part of trust is, indeed, to seek his sympathy, 
confident of finding it in a true sense, if not exactly 
in the sense we have been accustomed to expect ; a 
sympathy that not merely feels for us, but feels with 
us, which has its ground in the spiritual likeness of 



266 LOVE TO GOD 

our nature and his — what we call sonship and 
Fatherhood. There are two kinds of sympathy : 
one which so lets itself down to our sorrows as not 
to lift us up out of them, which weakens us instead 
of strengthening us ; and the other, a strong whole- 
some sympathy which, understanding what we suf- 
fer, seeks to lift us away from it by the suggestion 
of cheering and invigorating truth. 

What comfort and strength in the trust that is 
willing to have God know all ; all our weakness, all 
our temptation, all our sin ; that we have nothing 
to conceal from Him, but can lay our hearts bare 
before Him, as we cannot, perhaps, to any earthly 
friend ; sure that He will know how best to heal 
us ; know what cautery and knife of remorse and 
penalty we need, know what tender, soothing hope 
and encouragement, that we may yet be healed and 
redeemed. 

What comfort and strength, too, when men have 
misunderstood us or been unjust to us, in the trust 
that sends us to God in the confidence that He un- 
derstands and knows our thoughts and our feelings 
and our motives, that He will do us justice. How, 
in our very childhood, with our heart wounded un- 
der some unjust charge, and too timid or too sensi- 
tive or too proud to defend ourselves, when we have 
gone away out of all human sight and opened our 
heart to God, the sense of his sympathy has con- 
soled and cheered us and sent us back stronger- 
hearted, and our tears all dried by that strong and 
tender hand. 

To love God with our hearts, of course, is to love 
Him with our affections. It is to love his love, and 



LOVE TO GOD 267 

his love is his essence, the inspiration of his power, 
the director of his justice ; so that his power, his 
justice are but forms of his love. The heart of 
God, as the heart of man, is love. Do not ask me 
to analyze that, whether it be the love of a mother 
bending over her child's cradle or its sick-bed or 
its grave ; whether it be the love of the man or 
woman who lives for others, and most for the most 
lonely and most needy ; the love that suffereth long 
and is kind ; the love that envieth not, is not purled 
up, that hopeth all things, beareth all things, be- 
lieveth all things ; or whether it be the love of the 
saintly heart, bowing the head and lifting the soul 
in sweet, overpowering recognition of the Infinite 
Love. Oh ! can any one who is not insensible, can 
any heart which is not of stone, ever think of the 
unspeakable goodness of God, of his patient love, 
his forgiving love, his steadfast and abounding love, 
and the hourly blessings it bestows upon us, without 
an answering glow ? Surely we are not so heart- 
less as not to love Him who first loved us ! First 
loved us ! Yes, long before our minds could frame a 
thought of Him, or our hearts lift a prayer, his love 
created us and has borne us in its bosom ever since ; 
has borne us — and borne with us ! — how long and 
how patiently and how kindly ! To love God is to 
feel toward Him reverence, trust, and affection. 

But it is not enough that we have a clear and ac- 
curate thought of God, an intellectual belief in Him. 
Important as that is, it is not all. Nor that we have 
devout affections toward Him, sincere feelings of 
piety. Precious as these are, they do not cover the 
whole of religion or of the love of God. They 



268 LOVE TO GOD 

need also to be carried into action, to be manifested 
in the obedient life ; and so the commandment bids 
us to love God " with all our strength," that is with 
our active powers. 

We are to love God with our wills and in our 
lives, as well as honor Him in our thoughts, and 
reverence and trust Him in our hearts. Mind, 
heart, and will are to twine the triple cord of com- 
plete religion. And our religion, however thought- 
ful, however devout, remains ^complete, our love 
of God remains imperfect, till it be organized into 
action and control our deeds. Our God is not an 
infinite passivity, but an infinite energy — " My Fa- 
ther worketh," said Jesus ; and our religion, our 
sense of God, our love of God, must show itself in 
likeness to Him in this — in working with and for 
Him, doing the things which He wishes to have 
done. Sincere love shows itself in imitation, it has 
been said. Action helps to decide thought and 
to deepen feeling ; what of truth the mind has 
thought out in the study, what of good the heart 
has learned in its chamber of communion, the active 
powers must carry out. The student of social sci- 
ence inquires diligently into the evils of society ; its 
pauperism, its intemperance, its disease, its crime. 
There is plenty of vague sympathy and kindly will- 
ingness of feeling in the community, acting blindly 
and fitfully. Let us do something, says one, and 
sets to work and organizes the charity, opening wise 
and working channels for the thought and the feel- 
ing ; the free reading-room, the coffee-house, the 
friendly inn, the hospital, the home, the society for 
protecting abused children, industrial schools, im- 



LOVE TO GOD 269 

proved tenements. We cannot all do all things. But 
we can help many good works of others with visible 
as well as invisible sympathy. If we cannot put our 
hands to the special work, we can put them into our 
pockets, — not to keep them there, but to take them 
out filled with what may help the workers. 

That man loves God with his strength, or his life, 
who carries his religion into his daily work and busi- 
ness ; putting justice and honesty into these ; and 
charity, kindness, and brotherly love into them. I 
read in the biography of a business man that he 
would never engage in any business enterprise 
which he did not think was beneficial to the com- 
munity. Surely, whatever is beneficial to man is 
in accordance with the will of God, who wills good 
to all, and has put the world into the hands of men 
that they may work with Him in developing its 
resources and making it a home for happy and vir- 
tuous millions. To work with and for God in the 
service of man is to love God with our strength. 

Such, and so great, dear friends, is this first com- 
mandment ! Such, and so broad is our religion, 
our love of God. Mind, heart, and hand ; thought, 
affection, and will. 

I. The clear, the high, the worthy thought of 
God ; the using our God-given reason, a part of his 
image and indwelling in us, in the pursuit of truth 
and knowledge. 

II. The using and purifying and consecrating of 
our affections and desires ; trusting God, reveren- 
cing God, loving the things He loves. 

III. The putting thought and feeling into life ; 
the doing what He is doing, the doing his will. 



270 LOVE TO GOD 

So broad is religion, covering the whole nature of 
man with the whole nature of God. Mind to mind, 
feeling to feeling, will to will ! In each of these 
channels, God's inspiration and his life seek to flow 
into ours, and build up the complete manhood which 
is the fullness of God in us. 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 

Thus far . . . and no farther ; here shall thy proud waves be stayed. 
— Job xxxviii. n. 

I think no one can have watched the coming in of 
the tide upon a beach without having the thought 
suggested of two opposing powers, one visible, one 
silent and unseen. 

In from the bosom of the deep comes the long 
wave, charging up the shore as sure to overwhelm 
it ; but all at once it pauses, bends, breaks, and 
retreats, as if stopped by an invisible hand, baffled 
by a silent word it could not disobey. 

And we know that, however high the succeeding 
waves may reach, there is a line beyond which they 
will never go. The very drops of spray which leap 
or are blown off from the breaking, foaming crest 
have each their measured and appointed goal. On 
wave and drop, the grasp of the invisible hand has 
been laid; to each the silent word has said : "Thus 
far and no farther." 

It is enough to look upon such a scene and watch 
the play and conflict of forces, the beauty, and the 
grandeur ; but in thoughtful mood it soon becomes 
transfigured into symbols. We see in it an illustra- 
tion of that Law of Limitation which runs through 
our human experience ; the Hand which grasps and 
holds and stays our will ; the "Thus far and no far- 
ther " which sounds through all our lives. 



272 THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 

For we are all bound in a thousand ways. Fate, 
destiny, providence, organization, circumstance, laws 
of nature, laws of mind, — these beset us behind 
and before and lay their hand upon us. Forces 
which we did not make and cannot control continu- 
ally oppose and thwart that force in ourselves which 
we do create and control — our will. 

In every direction, how soon and surely our effort 
finds its bounds. There are the limitations which 
belong to our humanity, shared with our race. We 
can conceive of superior beings doing things which 
no man can accomplish, and there may be beings 
who can do what we cannot even conceive of. We 
are limited by our individual temperament and or- 
ganization : one man can think what another can- 
not, or do a work not within another's faculty. We 
are limited by our temporary conditions : when we 
are ill we cannot do what is easy to us when we are 
well ; we cannot do when we are " out of sorts " 
what we can readily do when we are in the mood. 
The speech that flows unstinted and eloquent from 
the excited thought lags heavy and halting from the 
unkindled mind. We all know the hours when the 
picture, the lesson, the letter, the sermon, the handi- 
work will not prosper. The quickened interest, the 
warm heart find no difficulty where indifference 
finds impossibility. 

There are the limits of development and culture. 
The boy cannot do a man's work ; the sedentary 
student the feats of the athlete ; the unpracticed 
thinker the task of the trained reasoner ; the appren- 
tice that of the master ; the recruit that of the 
veteran. 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 273 

There are the limits of circumstances. If we are 
poor, we cannot do what we could if we were rich. 
If we are obscure and unknown, we cannot do what 
we could if we were in position of public importance 
and influence. If we live with those who misunder- 
stand us or are of uncongenial temperaments, we 
cannot do as we could if we were among sympathiz- 
ing friends. There are persons who seem to take 
away all our powers, and others who kindle and 
bring them out. 

There are limits from relationships and family 
ties ; from social influences, customs, and opinions. 
Our wills are perpetually limited by other people's 
wills, by their claims, their rights, their convenience. 

I need not go on with the catalogue. It becomes 
a string of truisms. 

But obvious as the facts are when thus stated, 
and meeting us constantly in our own experience, 
yet, as being a law and the inevitable conditions of 
our life, how often they are not recognized, how 
often they are not accepted. 

And because they do not recognize them, multi- 
tudes are — they know not why — restless, dissat- 
isfied, disappointed, and find life a failure. And 
because they will not accept them, multitudes are 
— they know not why — unhappy, and find life a 
burden. 

Into the much-vexed question of man's freedom as 
limited by God's supreme will, I do not propose to 
go, further than to say that we cannot doubt that it 
is so limited ; and that we cannot believe that it is 
annihilated. Within the limits the freedom is real. 

Our feet are drawn to the ground by his force of 



274 THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 

gravitation, but they are not fastened there. Our 
wills through the muscular force can lift them for a 
short space and for a brief time. 

His law of righteousness binds us unchangeably 
to the right. But we have power to move ourselves 
away from it to do wrong. It is, however, but for a 
space and for a time. Through retribution, suffer- 
ing, shame, penitence, we come back again, as the 
drops that darted off into the air from the crested 
wave all came back at last to earth or sea, shattered 
but not destroyed. Can our souls go outside the 
attraction of God's moral law any more than our 
bodies can go where his law of gravitation will not 
act? 

One thing that assures us of our liberty, of the 
element of freedom which is our birthright amid all 
our limitations, is this, that in no case are these 
limits sharply defined ; they are expansive and mov- 
able ; there is a margin. Our physical powers, for 
instance, do not at once stop short. Between the 
first sense of fatigue and absolute exhaustion what a 
range there is ! Death is the absolute suspension of 
the body's vital powers ; but no one can tell the pre- 
cise point when death becomes actual or inevitable. 
The traveler, falling exhausted in the snow, sees 
suddenly a light, hears the bark of the dog or a 
cheery human shout. A moment before he could 
not go a step farther ; now he can go a rod. The 
Alpine climber gives out utterly, but a parting cloud 
shows the summit close at hand, and a new energy 
quickens his exhausted muscles. The delicate wo- 
man, watching night after night by her husband's 
sick-bed, unexhausted ; the mother, to save her child, 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 2J$ 

crossing spaces of blazing timber which she could 
not by any possibility have passed in ordinary states 
of feeling ; the soldier on his forced march accom- 
plishing double the day's possibility on half the 
usual day's ration, — these are instances of what I 
mean by the range and margin of power. 

Still more do we feel this wide range in the limits 
of our mental and moral faculties. And though per- 
fectly conscious of being bounded in these, and so 
often reaching the apparent end of our ability of 
thought or feeling, we are yet continually let into 
experiences which show us that these limits are not 
rigid. 

Then, in both our bodily and in our mental and 
emotional powers, there is all the range which comes, 
as I have suggested, with cultivation, exercise, and 
growth. 

And this range, this margin, this flexibility of our 
limits, this absence of rigid fixedness gives us what 
we need of the impulse and joy of liberty in our 
lives. If our bounds are not bonds, if our fences are 
shifting, if on this stage of our life the scenes are 
movable, and what was but now a wall is the next 
moment a wide vista of landscape, we can walk more 
largely, even if we have need to walk circumspectly 
still. 

But this is not all we want to know : merely that 
our limits are not an iron bondage. We want to feel 
that they are a benefit and a help. And this too we 
shall find. I say we shall find our limits to be in a 
thousand ways helpful. They hinder and harm us 
sometimes, I know. But I believe that for one case 
where they do so, there are a hundred where they 
are a benefit. 



276 THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 

Take our first and perpetual limit, — the limita- 
tion of the spirit by the body. What a hindrance, 
what a burden, it seems to us sometimes ! What a 
prison house, this body, with its bounds of power and 
place, with its liability to weariness and pain, with 
its constantly pressing needs which take so much 
time and thought, with its appetites, warring against 
the soul ! How heavily it weighs sometimes on the 
wings of the spirit, a drag upon the far-reaching 
thought, the noble will, the enthusiastic feeling ! 
How often when the " spirit is willing, the flesh is 
weak," and we long to break its bonds and be free ! 

But another look tells us how much our spirit is 
helped by the body, how much it serves us. What 
an active and indispensable agent it is in bringing 
our minds to bear in accomplishing our wills, in 
manifesting, and so deepening, our feelings and 
making our enthusiasm fruitful. 

The body, by limiting the spirit, contains, so to 
speak, and consolidates it, individualizes and inten- 
sifies it ; calls out its powers by directing them in 
definite channels to definite ends. The very com- 
monest needs of the body — shelter, food, and rai- 
ment — are among the first things to call out the 
powers of thought. Those nations which have the 
fewest bodily wants are precisely those which are 
lowest in intellectual power. I have always thought 
that he was a wise man who, going as a missionary 
from England to one of the Pacific Islands, set the 
natives first of all to building him a house, somewhat 
after the pattern of English comfort. He did this, 
not in a mere thought for his own enjoyment, but 
he saw what would follow. They were no longer 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 2JJ 

contented themselves to live in huts, where they had 
herded with their swine. By awakening new wants 
in them, he had awakened thought and activity and 
so opened the way for the reception of higher moral 
and spiritual teaching. 

And in civilized countries, what vast machinery of 
manufacture, trade, commerce, and art are developed 
by increasing bodily wants. And how much of 
thought and skill and love of beauty and human 
helpfulness are called out. 

So, when we are inclined to complain of our bond- 
age to our bodies, we will remember their benefits. 
We will endeavor by good care and by obedience to 
the laws of health to make these willing servants as 
little of a burden and as great a help as possible. 

Notice, too, how in proportion as these limitations 
serve their purpose, they gradually withdraw and 
broaden, enlarging the sphere of the mind's freedom 
within them and its power over them. The child is 
more limited by his body than the youth is ; full- 
grown manhood has a large mastery over it, — and 
the more mind, the more mastery. The war showed 
us, among other things, that the men of mere muscle 
sooner break down under exposure and fatigue than 
more intelligent and educated men of inferior phy- 
sique. We do not wonder that, in the account of 
the Crucifixion, the stronger and coarser thieves die 
first. We know how the disciplined heart and exalted 
spirit triumph over bodily infirmity and pain. Men 
have been known to put off even the hour of their 
death by energy of will. For these limits also are, 
as I said, not precisely fixed. 

And when, "in the course of nature," as we say, 



2?8 THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 

the final limits of the body are reached, the soul, 
having made its full use of that organism, is freed, 
as we may believe, to use some finer body, suited to 
its next stage of progress, whose limits are wider, 
more flexible, more readily and completely answering 
to the impulse of the spirit. 

Again, how much we are hampered sometimes by 
the limits of the mind. Striving after clear vision 
of truth, seeking the explanation of mysteries, trying 
to get clear conceptions of the infinite, of the right, 
of God, of the soul and its destiny, of the causes of 
things and the laws of the universe, we are perpetu- 
ally baffled and tormented by our intellectual bounds. 
Yet these bounds are helpful. They send us back 
from speculation to observation, from thinking to 
work, from theorizing to living. By showing us what 
we cannot attain, the limits teach us to study to 
know, to prize what is within our reach. They send 
us back from daring flights to take faithfully the 
first steps which are enough to task our present 
powers. They bid us thoroughly master the known 
and learn its height and depth and use. 

For, as we have the desire to use it, is the truth 
revealed to us ; and while we are putting it to use it 
grows clear and leads us on. 

The mere idealist, the mere closet-thinker, the 
merely speculative reformer, — these men are apt to 
overlook this law of use, and that law of steps and 
degrees which is also a law of limit. The wise 
reformer, while he firmly holds his ideal and never 
loses sight of it, yet carefully observes how far it is 
possible to make it actual to-day, and then how much 
farther to-morrow. Recognizing, from the first, the 



THE LIMITATIOXS OE LIFE 279 

interval between the actual and the ideal, while he 
continually works towards it, he is saved from ex- 
travagant expectations and consequent disappoint- 
ment. 

Thus it happens that a certain narrowness of 
mental vision, a certain limitation of thought and 
feeling, seems almost essential to vigorous and 
effective action. This narrowness gives intensity 
and that "excess of direction " which seem needful 
to accomplish special results. In such cases the 
broadest-minded men are not the most effective. 
We may not like the one-sided man, or the man of 
one idea, but he gets the thing done. The orator 
who wishes to move his hearers to the point of 
action must not spend time in presenting all the 
sides of the question and all its qualifications ; but 
narrow himself to the truth that he holds to be true 
in spite of the objections, leave qualifications to his 
hearers, and press home his single thought to con- 
viction. 

So it is a curious fact in history, that the great 
movements of the world have been carried on by a 
certain narrowness of vision, by a certain amount 
of ignorance, and error even, mixed with the truth, 
unintentionally, of course. The large results were 
not in the thought of the movers. Their limits 
were their stimulus and help ; they gave them cour- 
age to begin and go on. Thus, as far as we can 
see, what kept up the heart of the early apostles of 
Christianity to preach and to suffer was their erro- 
neous idea that Jesus would return in their own life- 
time, as the Messiah, to establish the Jewish king- 
dom of heaven. I do not doubt that Luther got a 



280 THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 

good part of his fervid force from his limitations, — 
his dogmatism and intolerance. So the narrowness 
of Puritanism concentrated its power. For all ener- 
getic action, I say, such concentration within limits 
is demanded. The stream turned into a narrow 
channel becomes deep and rapid and sweeps obsta- 
cles away. 

In critical times, therefore, what is wanted is not 
so much a very broad, philosophical way of looking 
at events, a looking all round and dwelling on what 
may be said on all sides, but a taking of sides ; 
there is no time then for balancing and hesitating 
and observing nice exceptions ; but for a hearty 
surrender and throwing all our weight on the side 
which we are convinced is substantially right. 

The limitations of individual temperament and 
faculty help us by making out for us what kind of 
work we are to do, and in what way ; since there is 
not time for all to do all things, nor need that all 
should do all things. It is an immense advantage 
to each of us that there are some kinds of business, 
some kinds of study, some kinds of pleasure for 
which we do not care, which we are not interested 
in, and in which we should not succeed. The limi- 
tations of space help us by keeping us from scatter- 
ing our energies over too wide a ground. Not the 
number of acres, but the depth of tillage, makes the 
successful farm ; and that is a figure which covers 
a good many experiences. 

The limits of time help us by setting us more 
promptly to work. Who does not know how often 
he has accomplished more when he had but an hour 
or two to work in than when he had the whole day 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 28 1 

before him? And also by dividing our work into 
portions so that it does not seem beyond our pow- 
ers. To each day only the day's task. 

We go into a great library. It does not begin 
to be of use to us till our first desire, which is to 
read all the books in it, has settled down into select- 
ing and reading one. 

We go into a great gallery. It is of little value 
or satisfaction to us till our excited wish to see all 
its treasures has quieted itself into a willingness to 
study carefully one picture or statue. 

We go forth upon our travels and want to see 
the whole world ; but we are forced to choose one 
country, one city, one mountain. And the wise 
traveler limits himself to seeing a few things thor- 
oughly, rather than many superficially. 

"With renunciation," says the clear-sighted yeo- 
man, " life begins " — the true life of wise endeavor 
and successful accomplishment. " Our vague striv- 
ings must mark out their own limitations," and 
within these we must keep our desires and our 
efforts. 

But it is true, in a sense, of all life. The first 
thing the infant must be made to learn is that there 
are some things he cannot have, some things he 
must not do. His very safety depends upon that. 
That home alone is the happy home where the 
growing children are limited by the authority of the 
wise will of father and mother. The boy at school 
gets on much better for those regulations of fixed 
hours and lessons, which at times seem so irksome, 
than if left entirely to his own direction and caprice ; 
as every boy knows who has made experiment of 



282 THE LIMIT A TIONS OF LIFE 

both methods. And when we leave the shelter of 
home and school to go out into the world and make 
our own way, we must very soon choose some defi- 
nite pursuit if we would bring anything to pass. 
He best succeeds, even, who in any pursuit devotes 
himself mainly to some special branch, and makes 
himself master in that instead of scattering his tal- 
ent. 

What is the law of beauty, in art, in manners, but 
the law of limit, the keeping from all excess, from all 
extravagance ? 

And the law of pleasure, of happiness, what is it 
but the same law ? Go too far, have too much, and 
delight is quickly changed to satiety and disgust. 

And the law of health, what is it but the law of 
temperance, the law of limit, the keeping from all 
excess of eating, drinking, exercise, rest, of every 
appetite ? 

The law of morals is the same. Sin is only trans- 
gression, a going beyond, a going too far. It is no 
entity in itself. People talk of it as if it were a 
foreign element in us, to be uprooted and cast out ; 
whereas it is only the excess or misdirection of some 
passion, propensity, or faculty which, in its right use 
and within just limits, is innocent and beneficial. 

Oh ! what disappointment, wretchedness, injury, 
come simply from uncontrolled tempers, unregulated 
feelings, ungoverned wishes ! How gladly ought we 
to hear that voice, which says to us on every side, 
whether in warning or in retribution, " Thus far and 
no farther," and to feel the grasp of that Hand, which, 
holding us back on this side and that, points to 
the only path of freedom, saying, " This is the way, 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 283 

walk ye in it," on either side you waste or bruise 
yourself. 

I do not say that all our limitations are helpful 
and friendly to us ; that would be an exaggeration. 
They are sometimes hurtful, no doubt ; especially 
when they are artificial. I do not say that we are 
never to try to remove them ; we ought to better 
our conditions, our surroundings, when we can. But 
so far as they are natural, so far as they are inevita- 
ble, so far as they are not rightly or not readily to 
be removed, our wisdom is to accept them. And 
this, not sullenly, not with the resignation of despair, 
but with a cheerful determination to find them help- 
ful, or to make them so. To see that we do the 
most and the best which they allow. And to be- 
lieve that they may be far better for us than an 
unlimited freedom, which might make us only rest- 
less, capricious, and selfish. 

Not the rebellious spirit that frets itself against 
the bars of its cage is free or happy ; but the heart 
that is so busy in its appointed work, even its com- 
pulsory work, which it so makes its own by pious 
trust and voluntary acceptance that it has no time 
to look beyond. The walls beyond which we do not 
choose or wish to go are not a prison to us, but a 
home. 

How glorious an ornament chains may be upon 
him who bears them with innocence and dignity ! 
So the cross, fully accepted, became the sacred sym- 
bol it is to myriads of souls. 

Friends, I have opened this train of thought to 
you, not as a subject of interesting speculation, but 
in the hope that I might help you, or some of you, 



284 THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 

to a more wise recognition, to a more cheerful ac- 
ceptance, of the limitations, the bounds, the priva- 
tions, which sometimes, and in so many forms, press 
heavily upon us. For I suppose there is hardly 
one in this congregation who has not felt them in 
one form or another. With one it may be the limit 
of straitened circumstances, cutting off from so 
many enjoyments and so many ways of doing good. 
With one the limitations of ill health, the bonds of 
invalidism, cutting off also from so many sources of 
enjoyment and activity. With one the limitations 
of uncongenial position or companionship. With 
one the limitation of intellectual power, the sense 
of mental inferiority. 

With one it is some great sorrow, seeming to shut 
down the heavens and shut off the very springs of 
life and cut off every motive for exertion. With an- 
other it is some great anxiety hovering near, seem- 
ing to shut in the horizon like a wall, and to make 
it impossible to take a step forward. With one it 
is some natural infirmity of temper ; with one some 
despotism of habit. With one it is some great hope 
disappointed ; with one some great joy denied. 

How powerless we are at times within these 
bonds, how impatient to break these invisible chains, 
these imprisoning walls, to free ourselves from this 
overmastering grasp ! 

Friends, we can conquer them only by accepting 
them ! Trusting where we cannot see, that they 
may be made helpful to us, then setting ourselves to 
make them so. 

Find what of patience, of fortitude, you may learn 
from them ; what of tenderness and gentleness and 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 285 

cheerfulness ; what pride and self-will they may help 
you to subdue ; what energy they may develop ; 
what contentment in doing what you can, and find- 
ing what joys you yet have ; what obedience in 
doing the work prepared for you and the task set 
for you. 

Feel that you have not earned the right to wider 
limits till you have shown that you can be trusted 
in these present ones ; nor a claim to a new lot until 
you have well learned the lesson of this, and done 
its work and got the good out of it. 

Recognize early the limits of your own tempera- 
ment and faculty and ability. Do not expect to be 
or to do all that you admire in others. You are 
differently constituted, and all are not made for the 
same work or with the same capacities. Cease 
striving after what is out of your beat, beyond your 
faculty. Believe that your responsibility is limited 
by your duty, your duty by your opportunity and 
ability. Recognize your temperament, your talent, 
as marking out peremptorily your kind of work. 
Make the most of these, avoiding their peculiar 
faults, developing their special virtues. You cannot 
get beyond your constitution ; you only waste and 
dishearten yourself by trying. But within its limits 
you will find ample room for all your energies. 

And for the same reason judge others charitably. 
Recognize their natural limitations, make allowance 
for their individualities. Keep their freedom sacred 
from the intrusion of your will. Do not try to force 
them to see as you do, or to do what you think 
they ought to do. Do not expect the same kind of 
virtue from all persons, or the same style of goodness 



286 THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 

from all ; or the same sort of affection, or the same 
method of action. Accept God's great law of va- 
riety, which is also a law of limits. 

His law ! For we did not make it, and no man 
made it. Above our wills and all human wills, 
behind our freedom and all human freedom, is ever 
the supreme, the all-embracing Will ; the all-wise ; 
the all-good, the Almighty ! At times that will may 
seem stern, hard, and binding. But we cannot 
escape it. Fixed, unchangeable ; but loving and 
perfect ; a Divine Order ; holding all things — to 
save all. Holy, inexpressibly holy is it, to him who 
reverently accepts it. Sacred, inexpressibly sacred 
to the wise mind, to the trustful heart ! Under our 
feet, not the abyss, but the rock ; over our head, not 
blank vacancy, but the overarching span of the beau- 
tiful, sheltering sky ; around our way the circling 
horizon of our limits, moving as we move ! Not an 
iron ring, but the encompassing arms of protecting 
Law and Love ! Not so close to us as to stifle and 
imprison us ; never so far removed as to leave us 
unguarded. So, our bonds are transfigured into 
bounds, containing, supporting, helpful ; our strength 
and our security. They widen as we grow. It is 
our God who thus besets us behind and before. It 
is our Father who never leaves us alone. His is the 
constraining hand that points our way. His is the 
voice that speaks, on the right hand and on the left, 
" Thus far and no farther." Beyond Him we cannot 
go ; let us thank Him every hour for that, — for we 
should go only to loss and ruin. 

And so, placing our hand in his, we take up the 
beautiful hymn : — 



THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE 287 

"Thou Grace Divine, encircling all, 
Unsounded, shoreless Sea, 
In which at last our souls must fall, 
O Love of God most free ! 

" When over dizzy heights we go, 
One soft Hand blinds our eyes, 
The other leads us safe and slow, 
O Love of God most wise ! 

" The saddened heart, the restless soul, 
The toilworn frame and mind, 
Alike confess Thy sweet control, 
O Love of God most kind ! 

" And though we turn us from Thy face, 
And wander wide and long, 
Thou hold'st us still in Thine embrace, 
O Love of God most strong ! 

" But not alone Thy care we claim, 
Our wayward steps to win, 
We know Thee by a dearer name, 
O Love of God within ! " 

Yes, within. For here we strike upon the final 
and central thought, and lay our finger upon the 
secret pulse of the whole. The law which is around 
us is within us too, one and the same. 

For in the depth and sense of our being we are 
one with God ; spirit of spirit ; one with our Father. 
His perfect law is, then, the law of our being. In 
obeying it we are but obeying the law of our own 
being — and that is the very definition of freedom. 

The limits are transfigured ; they are but the 
saving conditions of our life ; the measured steps of 
our liberty ! 



THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 

And I said, I will water my garden-bed ; and lo, my brook became 
a river, and my river became a sea. — Ecclesiasticits xxiv. 13. 

Life is full of such surprises. You feel the truth 
of it in your own experience as soon as I say it. 
With all that is regulation and all that is routine in 
your life, you know how large an element there is of 
the unexpected. With all the accustomed satisfac- 
tions that are as sure as the morning light or daily 
bread, there come constantly the unlooked-for joys. 
In the midst of disappointment about something we 
hoped for and planned for, there comes something 
we did not hope or look for, to make us feel that we 
are not forsaken and that life is a blessing after all. 

We even find all at once, sometimes in very 
familiar things, a value, a beauty, a significance we 
had never noticed in all the many days we had 
lived among them. As you may go a hundred days 
through a street, and on the hundredth see for the 
first time some object which had been there all the 
time. In the unlooked-for thing, in the before un- 
recognized value, in the familiar thing, we have hints 
in a thousand ways of this element of surprise in our 
life — the unsought, the unexpected, the unprepared- 
for. 

It has its dark side, I know ; the unlooked-for 
trouble, the sad disappointment ; but quite as often, 



THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 289 

— I believe far oftener — it is the flooding of our life 
with undreamed-of gladness. Through the meadow, 
in front of my friend's house, winds a river, a narrow 
thread of white in the green meadow, but some day 
I look out and the flood-tides have turned the bare 
marsh into a lake. As you journey in your summer 
vacation among the mountains, you remark how the 
landscape is marred by the desolate-looking river- 
bed, through whose expanse of hot white sand and 
pebbles trickles a shrunken streamlet, or lies in 
pools among the rocks. But some day the black 
rain-clouds descend about the summits, the far-off 
hidden springs are filled, and a swelling torrent 
dashes among the rocks and pours deep and broad 
over the sandy reaches. 

But even of the dark side, the disappointed hope, 
the unexpected sorrow, we have to say that it also 
bears in its heart the unlooked-for good, the still 
more unexpected peace. 

Even the anticipated evil — before the coming-on 
of which we have trembled, as something which we 
could not bear — when it has come has brought with 
it an unexpected strength. God's hand was there, 
the secret might which He has set in the depth of 
the soul, or the safeguard by which we are shielded 
from more feeling than we can endure. It is not all 
that we dreaded. And the very tears wherewith we 
water the garden-bed beneath which some dear hope 
has been laid away, themselves grow into a river of 
life and bear us out upon the great ocean of God. 

But in our more ordinary experiences, those nearer 
the surface, there is a great satisfaction in this 
element of surprise, of the unexpected. How the 



29O THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 

children love to have their little secrets about Christ- 
mas-time or the birthday ! The little mystery and 
surprise double the value of the gift ; and what they 
know beforehand they will make believe not to know, 
or it will not give them its full delight. And our 
good Father, who gives us all, deals with his grown- 
up children sometimes in the same way ; and in the 
element of the unforeseen, the unknown which sur- 
rounds our knowledge puts a joy of freshness and 
surprise, which is not only a stimulus to search, but 
one of the chief joys of discovery. He has done this 
in making man a being of progress ; in constituting 
him so as to find a joy in the advance from the 
known into the unknown, and the transference of 
the unknown into the known. 

Next to the joy in the discovery of unexpected 
Love, I suppose the highest may be that of the dis- 
covery of unexpected Truth. Or even the faint 
assurance of a truth before suspected but not estab- 
lished, the lifting of the last veil, however thin. 

The devout astronomer Kepler, when he had 
reached the demonstration of a problem of scientific 
truth, writes in the joy of his enthusiasm, "What 
I prophesied twenty-two years ago, at length I have 
brought to light, beyond my most sanguine expecta- 
tions. It is now eighteen months since I got the 
first glimpse of light, three months since the dawn ; 
a very few days ago the unveiled sun burst upon 
me, wonderful to gaze on. Nothing holds me ; I 
will indulge my sacred enthusiasm, I will triumph 
over mankind and build a tabernacle to God ! The 
die is cast ; the book is written ; to be read either 
now or by posterity, I care not which. It may well 



THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 



291 



wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six 
thousand years for an interpreter." 

And not into the lives of great men, only, but 
into all our lives, in many simple, familiar, homely 
ways, God, who has made us what we are, infuses 
this element of joy from the surprises of life, which 
unexpectedly brighten our days and fill our eyes 
with light, — and it may be with a tear, — as our 
heart is touched with the thought of his unlooked- 
for goodness. He drops this added sweetness into 
his children's cup and makes it to run over. The 
success we were not counting upon ; the blessing 
we were not trying after ; the strain of music heard 
in the midst of some drudgery ; the beautiful morn- 
ing or sunset picture thrown in as we pass to or 
from our daily business ; the chance-made compan- 
ion who brightens and lightens the else tiresome 
and lonely journey ; the sweet child's face ; a pass- 
ing benediction at the street corner ; the unsought 
word of encouragement or expression of interest 
and sympathy ; the friendly message ; the chance 
word dropped in our hearing, that clears a troubling 
beyond all our inquiries, or awakens or strengthens 
us to a duty beyond all direct counsel ; the sentence 
that means for us more than the writer or speaker 
meant ; the letter which comes to cheer a desolate 
hour that needed it as the writer could not know ; 
the kindly greeting which lightens with hope the 
heart of the young man seeking to make his place 
in a strange city ; the guest who comes to your 
house for a day and leaves a beautiful presence 
there forever ; the words that thrill a mother's heart 
with the first revelation of depth of feeling or height 



292 THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 

of thought in her daughter's soul, or the brief, pre- 
cious sentences that reveal a thoughtful aim in her 
boy and show that his character has ripened into 
manhood, — these and a hundred like things, which 
your own experience will supply, are instances of 
what I mean by the joy given in surprise. 

You may call it accident or chance — it often is ; 
you may call it human goodness — it often is; but 
always, always call it God's love, for that is always 
in it. These are the overflowing riches of his good- 
ness, these his free gifts. Wonderful as are his 
steadfast, immutable laws by which our lives are up- 
held and beneficently ordered, around them fall ever 
these flowing garments of his grace, within whose 
folds his children may nestle and be comforted. 

But I pass to another suggestion of my text, and 
the most direct one. 

" I said, I will water my garden-bed ; and lo, my 
brook became a river, and my river became a sea." 
He thought only to turn among his plants the lit- 
tle irrigating stream, and it swelled and grew to a 
mighty stream ! 

How there happen to all of us these unlooked-for 
consequences ! How constantly we see large and 
unexpected results from small beginnings ! 

We thought to do one thing, and something quite 
other or greater comes of it. 

A few gentlemen get together to organize a move- 
ment for protecting the health of our volunteer army, 
by collecting and disseminating information upon 
the sanitary condition and regulation of camps and 
troops ; and the movement extends itself, swelling 
with a gust of personal sympathy and tender help- 



THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 293 

fulness, till it reaches every battlefield and hospital, 
and has its messengers with the wine and oil, the 
medicine, food, and garment, at the side of every 
wounded, fainting, hungry, ragged soldier ; has every- 
where its rests, its refuges, its home ; its agents for 
securing papers and pay ; for protecting the men 
against sharpers ; for helping them to their homes, 
or their homes to them, — all the multiplied instru- 
mentalities of help, one growing out of another, but 
at the first neither intended nor foreseen. 

The man of science begins some course of experi- 
ment, and lights upon something that leads to re- 
sults most remote and different from his intention 
or expectation. The alchemist, — if I may name 
so hackneyed an instance, — searching for the phi- 
losopher's stone that shall transmute all metals to 
gold, or the elixir of life that shall insure perpetual 
youth, never attained the fulfillment of his dreams, 
but discovered unintentionally some of the most 
valuable chemical substances. Galileo goes into 
the cathedral of Pisa to get a moment's quiet, or 
coolness, or comfort of prayer, and sees that swing- 
ing lamp which led to the pendulum that regulates 
all our households ! 

The plague breaks out in Cambridge, and Newton 
goes for safety to Woolsthorpe, walks in the garden 
one day, and, finding it hot, looks around for the 
shade of a tree, — and we all know what fruit of 
knowledge that tree bore. 

The reformer begins to right some special wrong, 
and he is led on into all freedoms, and his work 
grows and lives beyond himself. Jesus could say 
that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house 



294 THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 

of Israel, yearning with a patriot's and a prophet's 
heart to save his own nation from spiritual deadness 
and moral bondage by teaching them to fulfill the 
law, and substitute right-doing and genuine human- 
ity for formal worship and ritual obedience, and 
now, in lands unknown to him, he is worshiped as 
Saviour of the world, and even as God of the Uni- 
verse ! 

Zwingli lights upon a copy of the Gospels in a 
monastery library, and the outcome is that Switzer- 
land is freed from the yoke of Rome. Luther was 
roused to stop the scandal of indulgences openly 
sold ; but he could not end there ; he must go on to 
deny the authority of the church, to burn the bull 
of the Pope, to proclaim the right of private judg- 
ment. Protestantism aimed only at exalting the 
authority of the Bible above that of the Church. It 
is ending legitimately in setting the authority of 
the word of God in the soul, the reason and con- 
science and heart of man, above both Bible and 
Church. 

An ingenious mechanic of America invents a ma- 
chine for cleaning cotton easily of its seeds, — no- 
thing more. Its introduction gives an unexpected 
impulse to the cotton culture, to slavery, then be- 
ginning to die out ; its victims increase from thou- 
sands to millions. Its moral poison spreads through 
state and church and school and trade, infecting the 
whole land. A handful of reformers, inspired with 
an inexorable and tenacious moral purpose, and 
headed by a man whom the mayor of Boston, 
searching for, found at his printing-press in an ob- 
scure attic, with only one small black boy as his aid, 



THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 295 

— this handful of true men and women determined 
to overthrow the wrong. They took neither ballot 
nor sword in their hand ; they dared not hope in 
their own lifetime to see success. They had no 
method to propose save this simple moral protest ; 
no plan save the simple ceasing to do wrong. They 
have lived to see the little stream of influence grow 
till the ballot brought a Proclamation of Emancipa- 
tion, and the sword enforced it ! 

I remember how a faithful preacher of the anti- 
slavery gospel told us that when the subject first 
pressed upon his conscience, he thought he could 
free himself from the obligation by a single sermon 
on the subject. But when once he had opened his 
lips, it flowed in upon him in such a growing sense 
of its vital and critical nature, that men came to say 
of him that he preached nothing else. And that 
was no more true of him than of others, of whom 
the same thing was said by those who did not mean, 
if they could help it, that it should be preached at 
all. 

Our fathers aimed only at securing colonial rights 
by peaceful petition and protest. They could not 
end until they had achieved, through eight years of 
war, that independence of which the boldest did not 
speak at first. 

Their sons aimed only at preserving a union of 
free and slave States under the guarantee of an un- 
changeable Constitution. They could not end but 
in a nation of free States under a Constitution thor- 
oughly purged of slavery. Men in certain quarters 
are agitating the question of inserting the name of 
God into that Constitution. When justice was put 



296 THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 

into it, and equal rights to men of every race, God 
was put into it more than if, that left undone, 
his name had been blazoned in every article. The 
work will be completed when the courts shall de- 
cide that, however unintentionally at the time, the 
political rights of women were at the same time se- 
cured. 

We call it the logic of events. It is the mind of 
God in events acting through human wills ; or 
human wills putting themselves at last into the 
order of the thought and will of God, the purpose 
of the universe. 

But now, to turn again from the public to the pri- 
vate life : how our own personal, unpublished expe- 
rience also illustrates this truth, of the unexpected- 
ness of results, as it did the unexpectedness ol joys. 

How little we can forecast or foresee the con- 
sequences of our actions ! How much we fail to 
accomplish which we intended and tried to do ; how 
much we do, or have done through us, which we 
never intended ! What results issue from our plans 
of action which we neither hoped for nor thought of 
when we began ! With however clear heads or de- 
termined wills we mark out our chart or arrange our 
strategy, in how many ways the voyage of life, or 
the battle of life, ends quite otherwise than we had 
sought ! We sail with " sealed orders." 

Recall, even out of your childhood, the gratified 
wish from which so much delight was looked for, 
but which brought little but discontent and pain. 
Remember the thwarted will, which turned out the 
very best thing for you. 

Remember your plan and purpose for another's 



THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 29; 

good which proved all wrong, and that to which you 
gave a reluctant assent, with many forebodings, 
which proved in the end the best, the happiest 
course. 

Remember how much more you have accomplished 
by indirect and unconscious influence than by in- 
tended effort and advice. 

Remember the affliction which seemed an over- 
whelming flood of darkness, and proved an incoming 
of great light, an opening into heaven. 

Remember the success which puffed you up and 
spoiled you ; and the loss which subdued, softened, 
and purified you. 

Remember the failure which seemed the breaking 
up of your life, but proved the awakening of new 
energies and the opening of new prosperity. 

Remember the little act of denial or fidelity which 
strengthened into a habit of virtue. Remember the 
little indulgence which was the beginning of a bad 
habit that overmastered and shamed you. 

Remember the careless sentence which led to the 
breaking of an old friendship or opened out into the 
binding of a new and precious tie. 

Remember the thoughtless speech which swelled 
into a great mischief. Remember the brief word 
fitly spoken which ripened into a great good. 

I do not say that the little thing is always the full 
efficient cause of the result, but it is the beginning 
of a train of causes, leading to a result neither in- 
tended nor foreseen. 

And now what is the lesson ? 

Surely not that we are to leave off aiming for or 
planning for special things. Because we cannot con- 



298 THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 

trive results, we are not therefore to be thoughtless 
of results ; because we cannot calculate conse- 
quences, we are not to be careless of consequences. 
We have judgments and wills to be used. Because 
the winds of God blow and his currents flow beyond 
our vision and control, we are not the less, but all 
the more, to set our sails to meet them, and to hold 
firm the helm. Although there is this element of 
the unexpected, the uncalculated, the unwilled, this 
element of surprise, in our lives, — for the very reason 
that it is so it is not our business ; we are to care 
for the other elements, the regulated, the willed, the 
resolved. The inspirations and reinforcements from 
beyond ourselves are to be the reward of fidelity, not 
the substitutes for it ; not mystic reverie and passiv- 
ity, but active thought and consecrated will are the 
conditions of God's indwelling power and peace. We 
must begin to do the humble, plain duty of the hour ; 
we must water our garden-bed ; for the stream, for 
which we have thus made an opening into our lives, 
may fill and flood them — first a river, and then a 
sea ! We must have an object, a duty. And a part 
of duty is to consider the consequences — the prob- 
able consequences — of our actions, to the best of 
our judgment. 

Only, we are not bound to consider all merely 
possible consequences ; since they are beyond our 
knowledge and our power, and are therefore not in- 
cluded in our responsibility. And there are generous 
and noble impulses, and movements of conscience 
which transcend the consideration of all immediate 
consequences in the assurance of final and prepon- 
derant results of good. 



THE SURPRISES OF LIFE 299 

The lesson is that we are not to be overanxious 
and troubled about results, or weighed down with 
any morbid sense of responsibility, since results, 
after all, are but partially in our power, and the 
happiness and good of others but partially within 
our control ; but, with a healthy cheerfulness, we 
are to do as well as we can and what we can, ready 
then to leave results to the Power and powers be- 
yond ourselves that work with us. 

The lesson is that we are not to have our will 
and our way always ; but if we are willing not to 
have it, we shall be likely to have something as 
good, or better, done through us — or beyond us. 

The lesson is that we are to guard carefully 
against the incoming of the small beginnings of evil 
that may swell to an engulfing and devastating 
flood. 

The lesson is that we are to keep the channels 
open, by love and by fidelity, to the incoming of all 
good influences and to the spirit which through us 
works beyond our thought and will. 

The lesson is, first and last, that we must recog- 
nize and trust and gratefully bless that Will which 
encompasses all our plans, and that Love which 
embosoms all our lives ; which, in ways known and 
unknown, by methods foreseen and unexpected, by 
promises and by surprises, by his pledged justice 
and his free grace, fills and floods all our lives with 
good. 

1877. 



WHO IS GOD ? 

To us there is but one God, the Father. — i Corinthians viii. 6. 

Mr. Ruskin, who has written so eloquently upon 
Art and other matters, and whose eloquence is 
equaled only by his rashness, has recently addressed 
some letters to the clergy of the Church of England, 
of which he is, presumably, a member. In these 
letters he begins by asking whether " a simple and 
comprehensible statement" of the gospel, " accep- 
table to the entire body of the Church," might not 
be arrived at in " the terms of the Lord's Prayer, — 
the first words taught to children all over the Chris- 
tian world. The first clause of it," he says, "gives 
us the ground of what is surely a mighty part of the 
gospel, its first and great commandment, namely, 
that we have a Father whom we can love, and are 
required to love, and to desire to be with in heaven, 
wherever that may be. And to declare," he goes 
on, " that we have such a loving Father, whose 
mercy is over all his works, and whose will and law 
is lovely and lovable, . . . this surely is a most glo- 
rious good message and spell to bring to men, as 
distinguished from the evil message . . . brought 
to the nations instead of it, that they have no Fa- 
ther, but only a ' consuming fire,' ready to devour 
them unless they are delivered from its raging flame 
by some scheme of pardon for all ; for which they 



WHO IS GOD? 301 

are to be thankful, not to the Father, but to the 
Son." So writes Mr. Ruskin. 

Some years ago a good deal of attention was at- 
tracted to a statement of theological belief made in 
a sermon by a distinguished and popular preacher 
of the liberal wing of the orthodox church. The 
statement was this : — 

" Christ Jesus is the name of my God. All that 
there is of God is to me bound up in that name. A 
dim and shadowy effluence arises from Christ, and 
that I am taught to call the Father. A yet more 
tenuous and invisible film of thought arises, and 
that is the Holy Spirit. But neither is to me aught 
tangible, restful, or accessible. . . . Christ stands 
my manifest God. All that I know is of Him, and 
in Him. I draw all my life from Him." 

I can imagine that theologians in those churches 
would not accept these two statements I have quoted 
unchallenged. But judging from popular sermons 
and hymns, I presume they present a fair view of 
the general opinion and feeling in the churches. 
To the majority in them, I presume, these words 
represent their conception of God. The Father is 
to them a faint abstraction or a fearful Being ; the 
Son, Jesus Christ, is their trusted and loving and 
real God. 

A large part of the Christian world, though ac- 
customed by habit almost daily to pray, " Our Father, 
who art in heaven," seem not to have yet found 
that Father. Perhaps they have been accustomed 
to think that they could not "meet " Him till they 
should come to that heaven which they picture be- 
yond the tomb and beyond the sky. 



302 WHO IS GOD? 

But my object is not to criticise or judge the 
opinions of others. It is easy to see the inconsis- 
tencies in creeds which we are not involved in ; it 
is not always easy to state with entire fairness views 
from which we differ, — to state them, I mean, as 
they lie in the minds of those who hold them. 

I want rather, moved thereto by Mr. Ruskin's 
letter, to present the belief about God which lies in 
my mind and, I suppose, in the main, in yours. And 
in doing it I shall use our familiar phraseology. We 
can put it, in a single sentence, in those words of 
Paul : " To us there is one God, the Father." 

Here we have a doctrine of God, simple, full, 
sublime, and tender ; entirely sufficing, I believe, to 
every need of the mind and heart, to every problem 
and stress of life. To us the Father, and the Father 
alone, is the sufficient God and Saviour. None can 
love us so much as He ; none surely can be so mighty 
to help. When we have named the Infinite One and 
called him Father, surely we have spoken the Name 
which is above every name ; the Love which is 
beyond every love ; the Power which is beyond every 
power. We have named Him who, if known, must 
be nearest and dearest of all, and to all ; we have 
named Him who is the All in all. 

To us there is but one God. Our prayers are not 
distracted, our worship is not divided, our thoughts 
are not perplexed by a trinity or multiplicity of per- 
sonages in the Godhead. Through all the manifold- 
ness of operation and of manifestation we reach and 
perceive the " One and self-same Spirit," the only, 
the universal God. If we speak of manifestation, 
three is not a sufficient number. If we address Him 



WHO IS GOD? 303 

as almighty, all-loving, all-wise, all-holy, all-fair ; as 
truth, justice, love, holiness, power; as Creator, Sus- 
tainer, Providence, Judge, Redeemer, Comforter, it 
is still one and only one Being that we have in mind. 
If we think of Him as He is in himself, or as He is 
present working in nature, or as He is indwelling in 
the human soul, it is still the same one, undivided 
Spirit. He who is the order and unity in nature is 
the Father of our spirits. We cannot fit to our ideas 
the Trinity of the church creeds and the church 
prayers. We cannot, for instance, distinguish his 
presence in Jesus from his presence in all prophets, 
saints, and good men. We cannot distinguish the 
" Holy Spirit " from the Father, who is the Spirit 
and who is holy. 

To us He is the one God. He is not divided 
against himself. In that perfect Mind there is no 
dissension. We cannot speak of his justice as op- 
posed to his mercy, nor of his ability as contradicting 
his desire. We have no need of any expedient to 
reconcile his love with his law. His justice is but a 
form of his love ; his mercy is also his law. It is 
not his justice which condemns and his mercy which 
forgives. If we repent of and forsake our sins, He, 
as John said of old, "is just to forgive us our sins," 
since reformation deserves forgiveness, and is re- 
demption. If we continue in sin, his love sends 
every penalty of natural consequences which we 
need to admonish and recall us. For true love is not 
the indulgence that spares its object all pain, but the 
strong good-will and true kindness that gives pain 
when the good of its object demands it. Our God 
did not wait for the advent of Jesus in Palestine 



304 WHO IS GOD? 

before he could or would redeem men. The Old 
Testament is as full of forgiveness as the New. All 
religions teach redemption, and show the way and 
give the power. The healing powers in nature and 
the good in the human soul reveal it. 

To us, again, there is one God throughout the 
world and in all ages, under whatever name. And 
we believe Him as willing and as able to "save" the 
Jew who comes to Him through Moses and the 
prophets, or the Buddhist who comes to Him through 
Gautama, or the Parsee who comes to Him through 
Zoroaster, or the Mussulman who comes to Him 
through Mohammed, or the Theist who comes to Him 
through his own spirit, — or even those who name 
Him not but obey his law, — as He is to save the 
" Evangelical Christian " who comes to Him " through 
Jesus Christ." It was long ago said that " in every 
nation he that reverenceth God and doeth right is 
accepted of Him." 

And to us this One God is the Father. We ask 
no higher name, we can have none nearer or dearer. 
It satisfies the yearning of the heart ; it justifies itself 
to the intellect. Let me try to unfold what we mean 
by the Father. Certainly not a mere metaphysical 
abstraction ; not the name of the "first person" of 
a metaphysical Trinity; not an "effluence" or a 
"film." The name is to us vital as with life-blood; 
significant of the utmost reality. It does not give 
us, indeed, a God visible to eyes, or of whom we can 
make a picture in our imagination ; but it gives us a 
God perceptible to our spirits, apprehensible to our 
reason, and accessible to our love. 

When we call God our Father, we mean, in the 



WHO IS GOD? 305 

first place, that He is the source of our being, and 
that our being is akin to Ids. We mean no^t merely 
that we are creatures of his power and objects of his 
love, but that we are born of his very substance. Our 
essential life is a germ from his essential life. Our 
nature is essentially his nature. We, as spirits, are 
emanations from, and therefore manifestations of 
Him, the Spirit. Made in his image, we inherit his 
likeness. By this kinship we are perpetually bound 
to Him and He to us. Here is a primal tie which 
can never be abolished. This makes Him accessible, 
apprehensible to us. Our own essential, that is, spir- 
itual, faculties are representative of what He is. As 
we live in them, He becomes known to us through 
the law of affinity. Reason, justice, love, will, in us, 
are not different in kind, but only in degree, from 
the same qualities in Him. So the son in us reveals 
the Father in Him ; and we can rightly judge of 
thoughts, purposes, and deeds attributed to Him, by 
their correspondence to the highest faculties in us. 
Such a God can give us the sympathy of a nature 
like our own. Hence no relation can be so intimate, 
no being so near, as God, our Father, may be to us ; 
while at the same time we reverently recognize that, 
as Father, He is, to us children, far above us, higher, 
greater, not comprehensible, although apprehensible. 
The intimacy takes away no reverence, but inspires 
it. The great mystery of God remains, only not to 
terrify but to uplift ; and it is plain that, as we live 
filially with Him, this nearness, intimacy, union, and 
likeness will become more and more, from a possibil- 
ity, an actuality. Our growing spirituality is a grow- 
ing revelation of the Spirit to us ; for no one truly 



306 WHO IS GOD? 

knoweth a father save a true son and him to whom 
true sonship shall reveal him. 

In the second place : in saying that our God is 
the Father, we mean that He is perfect love. He 
is no father who does not love his children ; and 
He is not the Infinite Father who does not love his 
children with absolutely unlimited and inexhaustible 
love. We can, therefore, never impute to Him hate, 
wrath, or anger, even against the most rebellious and 
wicked of his children, whatever men of old time 
may have thought and said. These, in men, are 
perverted passions, and not spiritual faculties, and 
they have no likeness or correspondence in the di- 
vine nature. They are unworthy of a true human 
father, and to attribute them to God is to make Him 
worse than man. A being of infinite wrath is simply 
Devil, not God. The only form of anger justifiable 
in man is indignation against wrong. This must 
represent something in God, whose face, to use the 
Biblical figure, is certainly set against all evil doing 
to destroy it. God being perfect love, when most 
just He is most loving ; for his justice is but the 
application of his love. And when that justice ap- 
pears in the most terrible retributions, which are 
the natural consequences of sin, we see it to be love 
still, because we see it to be disciplinary, and never 
vindictive. This love our. heart first feels, and then 
our reason justifies, seeing everywhere proofs of the 
beneficent Providence ; and where it cannot see, it 
trusts still the affirmation of the heart, and believes. 
It may seem, at times, as if this Providence were 
only power and not love, and so God a Ruler and 
not a Father ; for at times it looks as if the indi- 



WHO IS GOD? 307 

vidual were quite disregarded and crushed in the 
on-going of the great Will. But a farther-reaching 
look, a more spiritual insight, justifies the heart 
still. In a spiritual estimate, in the eternal view, a 
great law of compensation is revealed, and we shall 
find that the individual is cared for in the end as 
scrupulously as the race, the atom as the universe, 
and none are lost. The perfect Providence reaches 
the individual, not by being special, minute, and de- 
tailed, but by being universal. We can reconcile 
with the thought of a loving and all-mighty Father 
the existence of evil and suffering so long as they 
are disciplinary, temporary, and capable of being lost 
at last in infinite good ; but the moment you speak 
of everlasting evil and everlasting misery, you have 
dethroned the Father, and must look for another 
God. 

In the third place : in calling God the Father, we 
mean that He is the Infinite Will, the Supreme Law, 
the Absolute Authority. As our Father, he has a 
rightful claim to our obedience. For his power is not 
arbitrary strength, but it is the energy of wisdom, 
love, and justice. His law is not arbitrary enactment 
or statute, but it is the divine method of the uni- 
verse ; it is the law of his own essential being. It is 
therefore the law of our being, and we can live com- 
pletely and happily only in accordance with it. We 
obey Him when we obey the inmost laws of our 
being, since his law for us is written in our constitu- 
tion ; while at the same time we reverently recognize 
it as a law above ourselves, and look to Him to reveal 
it to our reason and conscience, and to give strength 
to our will to obey it when revealed. God is Judge 



308 WHO IS GOD? 

and Sovereign, but is these as the old patriarchs 
were, and is not less, but all the more, our Father. 
Our obedience is not the reluctant service of slaves 
fearing the lash, but of sons glad to carry out the 
Father's will, and to work in accomplishing his pur- 
poses. If we disobey, we harm ourselves and others 
by putting ourselves against the law of our nature 
and of the universe ; and that law, which is God's 
law, condemns us. The law, which is perfect justice 
and perfect love, meets us, then, not as anger but as 
retribution. It pursues us till it restores us to unity 
with itself. So the same who judges also redeems ; 
and our Father is our Saviour, too. 

Such is our doctrine of the Father. We hold it 
sufficient for every need of the soul, for every pri- 
vate want and every public emergency. 

You are lonely, desolate, friendless : here is One 
bidding you know Him as the Father, and in that 
name giving you assurance of tenderest sympathy, 
the sympathy of a nature like your own ; who, be- 
cause He is Spirit, can enter into your inmost spirit, 
to comprehend, to strengthen and uphold. 

The deep shadow of bereavement and affliction 
lies heavy on your heart and broods darkly over your 
home : lo ! " standing in the shadow," your Father. 
In the silence a voice saying, " My child, be of good 
cheer ; I am with you to bear your griefs ; I stand 
by you, and you shall not fall ; I touch your sorrow 
and change it into blessing." Is not the all-mighty, 
all-loving Father the sufficient Comforter ? 

You are troubled, weary, harassed with the care 
and burden of life : what thought so helpful and 
cheering as that of the eternal presence of the per- 



WHO IS GOD? 309 

feet Providence, the Infinite Father, whose calmness 
lies serenely above our distractions, and " around 
our restlessness his rest ; " who is near in every 
emergency and disappointment, and able and willing 
to make everything work for good ! 

You are confronted by difficult duty : what 
thought can be so inspiring as the thought of Him, 
the Father, whose work every duty is ; whose will is 
working through every true work, in and through 
every faithful man ! 

You are tempted : what thought so powerful as 
the remembrance of the nearness of the infinitely 
holy Father, whose holiness is in your soul, too, as 
warning and power, if you will listen to it and obey 
it ; whose sons should be ashamed of every baseness, 
since they are capable of all nobleness ! 

But you have fallen, you have sinned, you have 
disobeyed your Father's command, left his home, 
sought a freedom which was not the liberty of his 
sons, alienated yourself from Him, and incurred the 
just, deserved penalty, the natural consequences 
of the violated law : what thought so startling, so 
moving, so redeeming as the remembrance of your 
Father, whose son you still are, though a prodigal ! 
What shame so keen as that of an ungrateful, diso- 
bedient son ! The commands of a tyrant there might 
be some manliness in defying ; but not those of a 
Father. His love which was around you in your 
innocence has followed you in all your wanderings, 
and stirs the penitent resolve within you as you come 
to yourself amid your hunger and your husks. You 
will go and confess all to Him. You are not afraid 
of your Father's perfect justice. It will give you 



3IO WHO IS GOD? 

every penalty you need and deserve, and every help 
you require to bear bravely the penalty. You will 
wish to bear it manfully yourself and not put it off 
upon another. So the God who has never left you 
will redeem you, working in and with you, an all- 
mighty, all-just, and all-loving Saviour. And He will 
do this for you, I believe, as long as you exist, 
whether in this world or in any other. 

I might speak of other experiences. Let these 
serve to show how sufficient to the needs of life the 
doctrine of "one God, the Father" is. In Him we 
find all that other religionists, hampered by what 
seems to us a perplexing creed, have sought (and 
have found) in their Saviour. Have found, I say ; 
for God, I venture to believe, cares not for names: 
and if men call him Jesus Christ, He is none the less 
their God and Father, though they know Him not 
clearly. Just as He is the God and Father of those 
who call Him Buddha, or Ahura-mazda, or Allah, 
or Jehovah, or Jupiter. To us the one God and 
Father of all is Creator, Sustainer, Ruler, Judge, Re- 
deemer, Inspirer, Sanctifier, Comforter. For " all 
these worketh that one and selfsame Spirit." 

In saying this, I do not overlook the help we may 
derive from human goodness, sympathy, strength. I 
do not forget the inspiration, the consolation, the 
saving power that comes to us from saints, martyrs, 
heroes, faithful men and women, whom we meet in 
the flesh or read of in history. 

Whoever quickens the power of God in us and 
helps free us from the power of evil is our saviour. 
But through all these, and beyond them all, I must 
see the Love, the Holiness, the Power which are 
God. None can be so near to us ; none so willing, 



WHO IS GOD? 311 

so able to help us, as our Father, who " is greater 
than " all others. 

The doctrine of the fatherhood of God is not 
peculiar to Christianity. Father was the name famil- 
iarly applied to the Supreme in ancient Greece and 
Rome. It is found in the Old Testament as well as 
in the New. It was repeated in the prayers of the 
synagogue at Capernaum, and the temple at Jeru- 
salem. But it is through the lips of Jesus that we 
have learned to say " Our Father, who art in heaven." 
To those who regard his reported words as final, it 
might seem sufficient that he never in a single in- 
stance that has been recorded called himself God, or 
taught others to call him so ; that his constant name 
for God was Father — " my Father and your Father," 
he said to his disciples ; that he spoke of the Father 
— not the Son — as dwelling in him and doing the 
works ; and that in prayer to the Father he said, 
" Thee, the only true God." 

But not the words of the wisest and holiest will 
suffice to reveal God to us as our Father : only the 
son in ns ; the filial spirit of perfect trust, love, and 
obedience. This alone will reveal to us fully what it 
is to have for our God the Father. By spiritual 
likeness alone can we know Him. 

But as we have the name and the idea, let us try 
to be true to it. Let us put off all notions and 
phrases inconsistent with it. Let us feel its fullness, 
its comfort, its inspiration, and its sufficiency. 

We are not polytheists ; we are not orphans. 
Let others have what God they mayor must ; to us 

THERE IS BUT ONE GOD, THE FATHER. 
February, 1880. 



WHAT IS MAN ? 

What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? . . . Yet Thou hast 
made him little lower than the angels. — Psalm viii. 4, 5. 
Beloved, now are we sons of God. — 1 John iii. 2. 

I have spoken to you of God, who in the preva- 
lent conception appears to be Jesus Christ, asso- 
ciated with a fearful Being called the Father, but 
little known, and a third shadowy and occasionally 
appearing personage called the Holy Ghost. I tried 
to present the truer conception of Him, dear to 
spiritual minds, as the one, universal Spirit of 
thought, love, and life, of truth, right, beauty, and 
goodness ; the Power, Order, and Law in outward 
nature, the Father of our spirits. 

To-day I wish to speak to you of man. " What 
is man," said the Hebrew Psalmist, " that Thou art 
mindful of him ? Yet Thou hast made him little 
lower than the angels ; " or, as some of the earlier 
and later translations read, " but little lower than 
God." 

This, however, I need not tell you, is not the idea 
of man in the popular theology. You know how 
the churches speak of human nature. " Poor, fallen 
human nature ; " " blind human reason ; " "the de- 
ceitfulness and wickedness of the natural heart ; " 
"the insufficiency of natural goodness;" — these 
are the common phrases. You know what the old 






WHAT IS MAN? 313 

creeds say : that man is by nature " utterly indis- 
posed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and 
wholly inclined to all evil." These are the words of 
the New England Confession of Faith, which is the 
basis of the creeds of the orthodox Congregational 
churches, accepted by them "for substance of doc- 
trine ; " and of the Westminster Confession, the stan- 
dard of the Presbyterian churches. The " Shorter 
Catechism," out of which the little ones in the latter 
church are instructed in religion, teaches them to 
say, " All mankind by the Fall lost communion with 
God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made 
liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, 
and to the pains of hell forever." 

This is the doctrine of " total depravity " and 
"original sin." In one form or another it holds 
possession of the churches. It is the foundation of 
their whole system of theology. It is itself founded 
upon the belief in what is called " the fall of man." 

An ancient Hebrew legend, in which figure a 
speaking serpent and trees, the eating of whose fruit 
gives immortality and knowledge of good and evil, 
is declared to be authentic, and, indeed, divinely dic- 
tated history. According to this, the first created 
man and woman sin in eating of the fruit, which 
they have been forbidden to taste. At once their 
innocence and uprightness are lost, their lives are 
forfeited, their nature and destiny are changed. 
That is not the worst. In their fall the whole race 
which is to descend from them falls ; human nature 
is corrupted and lost. With that taint of depravity 
— not merely a tendency to sin, but the inability to 
do anything else — every child is born into the 



314 WHAT IS MAN? 

world. The best born and the worst born are alike 
under this curse. All men alike, by virtue of their 
human nature, are disabled, ruined, lost. Their 
highest virtues, most noble and generous senti- 
ments, justest deeds, kindest affections, so long as 
they are merely natural, are all tainted, all incapa- 
ble of pleasing God. " Their righteousness is but 
filthy rags." Human nature, as human, is evil. 
Human reason, as human, is untrustworthy, and can 
reach no knowledge of God. The human heart, as 
human, is at enmity with Him. The human will, as 
human, is opposed to his law. " One thing we must 
all agree to," said an educated and amiable clergy- 
man to me, " that the first voluntary act of a child 
will certainly be evil." 

This is the doctrine of the depravity of human 
nature ; the received doctrine of the churches. It 
is made the foundation of religion. The first step 
in the religious life is made to be the consciousness 
of sin ; not merely of sins knowingly committed, but 
of the sinfulness of man's nature, and its lost state 
without a Redeemer. " A man must feel," said a 
distinguished theological professor, " the helpless- 
ness of his guilt, and the guilt of his helplessness." 
Into such a knot would the prevalent theology tie 
us up. 

I have tried to state this doctrine fairly. What 
I have to say of it now — what you in your minds 
are saying of it — is simply this : that it is not true. 
Man is not fallen. The race is not in ruins. Hu- 
man nature is not totally or substantially depraved. 
It has as much of original good in it as it has of 
"original sin." All scientific study of mankind 



WHA T IS MAN? 3 1 5 

points to the rise of the human race from low be- 
ginnings, not to its fall from high places. The 
facts are against this theory. Human nature is all 
about us. It is no extinct species. It is easy to 
observe it. We need not go to old books to find out 
what is true about it. Did any man, looking fairly, 
ever see a totally depraved man ? or if he did, did 
he take him as a true specimen of manhood ? Did 
he not call him a monster ? Can he really believe 
that his " unconverted " neighbor's goodness and 
piety and honest endeavors to do right are unaccep- 
table in the sight of God ? 

There is, however, a truth covered up, and as I 
think perverted, in the common belief. It is the 
truth of heredity : the fact of the transmission not 
only of physical qualities, but of moral tendencies 
from parent to child, from generation to generation. 
In this way, no doubt, evil tendencies — tendencies, 
that is, to excess or perversion in certain directions 
— are inherited and born in many a child. So the 
" sins of the fathers are visited upon the children." 
This is a truth of most serious significance. But 
it is only half the truth. By the same law, good is 
equally transmitted, — a fact full of encouragement 
and hope, which the common doctrine entirely over- 
looks. Even the evil taint never reaches to human 
nature ; only to individual character. No human ca- 
pacity is destroyed by it ; only the development of 
capacity arrested or retarded. It has been said of 
some men that they were so well born that they did 
not need to be born again. If we are faithful, this 
can be said of increasing numbers. At present, per- 
haps, few are so well born but that, in some direc- 



316 WHAT IS MAN? 

tzons, they need regeneration, — if you choose that 
word, — or development and discipline. 

Against the common doctrine, as against a dark 
background, let us hasten to set the bright truth, 
Man is not fallen. There is no historical ground 
for the alleged fact ; no necessity for the theory and 
the system constructed upon it. Man is not fallen ; 
he is imperfect. The race does not need to be re- 
stored to a lost innocence, but to be educated on- 
ward to a possible virtue. There are evil and wick- 
edness enough in the world, — sin enough. No man 
can shut his eyes to that. But there is no reason 
to think that there was ever a time when there 
was none. And never was there a time, I believe, 
when there was so much goodness in the world as 
now. Over against the theological fiction of the 
Fall of Man let us write in letters of light the 
natural truth of the Rise of Man. Over against 
inherited depravity let us write inherited goodness 
also. Over against the corruption of human nature 
let us write the essential worth and rectitude of 
human nature. Over against human disability let 
us write human ability. Over against the falseness 
of human reason and the wickedness of the human 
heart let us write the trustworthiness (I do not say 
infallibility) of reason, heart, and conscience. Over 
against conversion, as the universal need, let us 
write education as the universal need. Over against 
supernatural grace let us write natural virtue and 
human endeavor. 

A germ, with an impulse of growth and a law 
of development — that is what science finds every- 
where, I believe, in physical nature. Germs of rea- 






WHAT IS MAN? 317 

son, conscience, reverence, love, with an upward 
tendency, an impulse of growth, a law of progres- 
sive development, — these are what we shall find 
in human nature. Human thought, feeling, moral 
sense ; human customs, institutions, civilization, 
have from earliest stages been advancing. Not un- 
interruptedly indeed ; not without reversions, fall- 
ings back ; not rapidly, not always even visibly, yet 
certainly. From imperfection toward perfection is 
the march ; though we must take large periods to 
see it, sometimes. The outward world is not in 
ruins but in building. And human nature is not in 
ruins but in growth. 

I believe that the native constitution of man con- 
tains the elements of all the good that is in the 
world ; of all the truth, the justice, the love, the 
holiness — in a word, the religion. These are nei- 
ther the remains of a primeval holiness destroyed 
nor the fragments of an original revelation lost, nor 
the product of a power supernaturally introduced. 
Whatever a man by the grace of God may become, 
that he has the native capacity to become. No 
man needs a new nature, but only a new character. 
Human nature is not under a curse, but under a 
blessing, — the blessing of native capacity and in- 
born law of growth. 

Thus our theology sets out from faith in man. 
It declares his native faculties of reason, conscience, 
and heart to be, under right conditions, adequate, 
good, and trustworthy. It declares the original idea 
and law of human nature to be perfect. That idea 
the race has never lost, but is slowly realizing and 
developing. A man is "the perfect man" in pro- 



3l8 WHAT IS MAN? 

portion as he carries out the idea of human nature 
and is obedient to the law of his being. We find 
no faculty or propensity or instinct or passion in 
human nature that is in itself and necessarily evil. 
Every one is good in itself, intended for a good pur- 
pose, and productive of good if legitimately exercised. 
What we call evil passions are only good passions 
carried to excess, or misdirected, or unbalanced. 
What is needed is not eradication, but education ; 
education including exercise, control, culture, en- 
lightenment, influence, inspiration. 

Inspiration, I say ; that incoming of quickening 
from beyond ourselves and above ourselves, in which 
there has been such a universal belief in the world. 
The world has been accustomed, indeed, to regard 
it as the special gift of a few men miraculously en- 
dowed. We find it to be the common property of 
human nature, as a capacity ; possessed in varying 
degree, according to the degree in which the con- 
ditions have been fulfilled. Like all natural forces, 
it acts under law. Its conditions are aspiration and 
obedience. A native capacity, how could it yet fail 
to be in some men more intense, more full, more 
vivid in its utterance, more profound and enduring 
in its influence ? But no need of supplementary, 
special and miraculous intervention to provide that 
which was already provided for in the native consti- 
tution of man, waiting but for favorable development. 
Among the original faculties of human nature, we 
find what we call the religious or spiritual faculties. 
We find an inborn tendency to religion in all peo- 
ples and times, manifesting itself in cruder or riper 
forms and with superficial differences, but declaring 



WHAT IS MAN? 319 

a natural relation between the spirit of man and the 
Spirit which, under many names, is God. 

What is all this but saying, in our familiar lan- 
guage, that man is the child of God ? What is it 
but claiming our birthright as " sons of God," 
" made in his image," " partakers of the divine 
nature " ? Such we believe we are by nature, and 
not by supernatural grace. Such we are in capacity, 
whatever we may be in attainment. Such we are 
in nature, whatever we may be in character. 

I have been speaking of human nature, not of 
human diameter. Nature means capacity ; charac- 
ter means attainment. It is the nature of an apple- 
tree to grow and bear apples. A particular tree 
may be stunted and fruitless ; or its fruit may be 
gnarled and bitter. What it needs is only cultiva- 
tion, a better soil and better exposure, to bring out 
its true nature. 

Should any one ask, then, If the moral and re- 
ligious faculties be native in man, how can you ex- 
plain that all men are not virtuous, that all men are 
not religiously devout ? the answer is, of course, 
that faculties may exist and yet not be used ; that 
capacities which men alike possess may be in differ- 
ent degrees developed. 

Genius is not supernatural. Newton had not a 
different nature from the schoolboy puzzling over 
his sum. Jesus had not a different nature from 
Pharisee and sinner, though a character how differ- 
ent ! Of two sons of God, one may be an obedient 
dweller with his Father, another may be a wander- 
ing prodigal. But we have high authority for say- 
ing that the prodigal may repent and " come," not 



320 WHAT IS MAN? 

to a mediator, not to his elder brother, but " to him- 
self " and to his Father. 

To be the son of God is man's nature. To be 
consciously a child of God, willingly an obedient 
son, that is his growth in religious life. To the 
reverently exercised spirit there comes a time when 
it feels God, the Spirit, more than near. In some 
hour of high thought, when his reason has caught 
sight of a great truth ; in some still hour of com- 
munion, or strong yearning of prayer, when a great 
peace has filled his heart ; in some nobler hour of 
self-devotion or right-doing, when duty has grown 
clear to his conscience and a quickening energy 
has exalted his will ; in some moment of purity, 
when high and spiritual affections have warmed his 
heart, — then he has felt the assurance, glad, over- 
powering, uplifting, unspeakably beautiful and holy, 
that the God whom he had reverenced with such 
awe as above him was now entered into his spirit, 
an indwelling, inspiring presence. This love is 
God's love ! This truth is God's truth ! This justice 
is God's justice! This peace is God's peace! One 
cannot speak many words of such an experience. 
It is the experience of saints in all time, from the 
Ganges to the Jordan and the Delaware. It is the 
experience of every believing soul in its saintly 
moments. Then the light within is felt to be the 
light of God : " the spirit of man is the candle of 
the Lord." Then we cry, O Father, hast thou been 
thus always with me, and have I not known thee ? 
Then we learn that the Spirit which stirred us so 
powerfully in those rapt moments is every hour 
working in most familiar ways within our spirits. 



WHAT IS MAN? 32 1 

Such is our faith in man. As we believe in God, 
the Father, so we believe in man, the son. Man, 
not fallen, but imperfect ; often erring, often sin- 
ning ; yet not incapable of finding the way ; capable 
of redeeming himself with God's help. That help is 
ever ready to him who earnestly seeks. It may 
come to him through human mediations ; they are 
channels of God. Most powerfully and sweetly it 
comes through immediate contact and communion of 
our spirits with their Father. 

A most notable sign of our time is the growing 
faith in man. In some quarters it is carried to the ex- 
cess of being made a substitute for faith in God. This 
is the far swing of the pendulum away from the ex- 
cessive faith in God which makes man to be " nought 
and less than nought ; " which thinks to glorify God 
by depreciating and decrying man. But intelligent 
men who avoid extremes are coming to offset divine 
grace with human ability. For superhuman revela- 
tion they write human discovery of truth, and declare 
all religions, all bibles, to be the outgrowth of human 
nature. For passive reliance on the divine provi- 
dence they put the exercise of human providence 
which, through knowledge, and care and faithful use 
of faculty and obedience to natural law, so largely is 
learning to arrest disaster, to heal and to prevent 
disease, and to extend life. The responsibility of 
evil is shifted from God to man, and also the provid- 
ing the remedy. In place of a supernatural grace 
converting the sinner, and trust in the atoning 
merits and sacrifice of a Redeemer, they substitute 
the human ability to put away evil and do what is 
right and good, the self-sacrifice of the lower to the 



322 WHAT IS MAN? 

higher, and the attainment of just so much of "sal- 
vation " and of "heaven" as each man in himself 
merits and makes, and no more. In a word, in place 
of the descent of God they put the ascent of man. 

But does all this faith in man, in which I heartily 
join, does this reliance on human ability exclude 
God? No, it includes Him. It includes Him as 
the ground of all power, the inspiring helper of all 
endeavor, the constant life of all life. Our power is 
the power to work, not instead of Him, but with Him. 
Our knowledge is not to know that He is unknow- 
able, but to know his ways and his methods in those 
laws of nature, which to the devout mind are his will. 
Our wisdom of experience is the learning to conform 
our wills to his ; to obey those conditions of our true 
and best life which surely no man created. If we can 
discover these laws and conditions of life, it is be- 
cause they already existed before and beyond us. If 
long-accumulated experience of the race has found 
out that a certain course of moral conduct is best for 
our life, it is because the universe, or the world, is so 
framed as to make it the best. And surely it was 
not man that so framed it. He has only discovered 
it and adapted himself to it. We shall find peace in 
doing righteousness because the " Power not our- 
selves makes for righteousness." We are to work 
out our own salvation, precisely because God is 
already and always working in that direction, and 
because that which is working in us to that end is 
God ; and because to be working in the direction of 
his will is our salvation. 

Sons of God, his children, receiving from Him a 
nature akin to his, and partakers of his, let us never 



WHAT IS MAN? 323 

forget that we have something God-like, something 
of God, something of our Father, in us. Let us 
never forget to what that summons us. For the 
capacity imposes the duty. 

Every thought ought to end in act, every specu- 
lation lead to conduct. If we have the belief — the 
better belief we count it — we must make it shape 
our better lives. As children of God, endowed with 
this high human nature, with these spiritual capaci- 
ties, we are bound, as the apostle so strongly says, — 
are bound to live not chiefly for the flesh, but chiefly 
for the spirit. We are under bonds to live nobly, 
humanly, manly ; to live unselfishly, to live bravely, 
to live conscientiously, to live supremely for the 
principles that are unseen but most real and endur- 
ing ; to live that eternal life which is the life of the 
eternal part of us. 

If we counted ourselves fallen, disabled, thor- 
oughly evil, totally depraved in our nature, we might 
say, Then let us act out our nature, do the things 
that are low and weak and wicked ; nothing better 
can be expected of us. We might say this ; I think 
logically we should say it. I do not mean that those 
who believe in the depravity of human nature do say 
it or act after it. Something in them, which they 
ignore, keeps them from that. They demand of dis- 
abled humanity to do a man's work. 

Let us remember, in this conflict and discipline of 
character, that, if human nature be weak, it is also 
strong ; if it yield to temptation, it may resist and be 
victorious. If it have animal passions and appetites 
that war against the spirit, it has a spirit to war 
against these ; has reason, conscience, spiritual affec- 



324 WHAT IS MAN? 

tions to control and direct the flesh. If it be selfish, 
it is also unselfish. If it be ignorant, it also knows 
in part and increasingly. If it be fallible, it is trust- 
worthy and sufficient for our present need, and may 
reach convictions which, if they fall short, need not 
betray. Remember that good is as natural to man 
as evil, and with right growth becomes more natural. 
See, then, that you give the good supremacy through 
the habitual choice of good. Expect, demand good 
and true and noble and generous things of yourself 
and of others. Faith in our nature, while it makes 
us humble in view of our attainment, ought to in- 
spire us with perpetual courage and endeavor in view 
of our capacities. Respect yourself too much to de- 
scend to what is base, sensual, selfish, unjust, un- 
manly, inhuman. Let your lives do credit to your 
birth. Noblesse oblige. See that your lives, within 
and without, do honor to your Father. " Herein is 
your Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." 
Manifest Him to the world, through moulding your- 
selves in his image, growing up into his likeness, 
doing his will. Thus will you be fellow -workers 
with Him in redeeming that world which, that it 
may be redeemed, is only " waiting for the manifes- 
tation of the sons of God." 

March, 1880. 



PRAYER 

Ye ask and ye receive not, because ye ask amiss. — James iv. 3. 

Prayer draws gently upward the habitude of our thought, and im- 
parts to us the ways of the divine thought. It nurtures pure love, 
and kindles what is divine in our souls. In a word, prayer procures 
to them who follow it a familiar communion with Deity. — Iambli- 
chus. 

Whenever men have risen to the belief in God, 
under whatever form, they appear instinctively to 
feel that they must have access to Him, must come 
into personal relations with Him. If they conceive 
of Him as a mysterious elemental Power in the na- 
ture around them, they must try to make that Power 
favorable to them ; to ward off its harmful aspects, 
to win its beneficent favor. If they conceive of Him 
as mainly the Judge of human actions and Sovereign 
decider of human fates, they try to appease his anger, 
to win his moral approval, to avert, by some form of 
propitiation, his condemning sentence. If they think 
of Him as Father, in the sense of protecting love and 
watchful care and counsel, they will seek to know 
his will and be worthy of his affection. If they call 
Him Father in the deeper sense of spiritual kindred 
and identity of nature, it will seem most natural and 
inevitable that there should be spiritual communion 
and inspiration. If they conceive of Him as the all- 
pervading Life of the universe, they will naturally 
wish to come into conscious contact with it, to re- 



326 PRAYER 

ceive more and more of its quickening into their own 
thought, feeling, and will, and to reinforce their own 
intermittent powers by the inflowing of this stead- 
fast force. If they conceive of Him as the immanent 
principle of that order of the universe which works 
always by unchanging law, wrought into the consti- 
tution of things, they will naturally wish to learn the 
conditions of that law, and to bring themselves into 
conformity with that order by fulfilling those condi- 
tions. If they conceive Him as Spirit, they will de- 
sire a conscious union with Him by the exercise 
of their own spiritual faculties ; those faculties by 
which they have vision of and vital connection with 
the Highest. 

A man's conception of God will necessarily deter- 
mine or color his conception of his relation to God 
and his mode of access to Him. The common notion 
of prayer is therefore closely connected with the 
common notion of God. I need not say how anthro- 
pomorphic that conception is ; how closely patterned 
after human limitations. Matthew Arnold's phrase, 
"a magnified and non-natural man," well expresses 
it. He is conceived of as a separate, individual per- 
sonage, of vaguely infinite proportions, whose will is 
expressed, not in the action of universal natural law, 
but in arbitrary volitions, the divine choice of the 
moment. To say that an event happens by God's will 
means that it occurs by his direct intention. He has 
a preference as to who shall be bishop in an English 
diocese or deacon in a New England church. He 
can decide to give the victory in an election or a 
battle, on one side or the other. He can direct a 
vote in Congress or a strategy on the field. He 



PRAYER 327 

apportions prosperity or adversity, and saves or de- 
stroys human lives, by his arbitrary will, " after his 
own good pleasure." 

In all this way of conceiving God and his relation 
to man, prayer naturally takes the form of petition, 
or the asking Him to give, or to do, special things 
for special persons. In the earliest forms of religion, 
the savage prays to his fetish, the idolater before his 
image, for whatever he wants that he cannot get for 
himself. He prays for rain and for sunshine ; he 
prays for food in scarcity, for defense against tem- 
pests, for healing of his sick child, for the cessation 
of disease among his cattle, for success in battle and 
the destruction of his enemy. These things he hopes 
to get as a direct gift in answer to his prayer, from 
the mysterious power or personage whom his idol 
represents ; to get it in return for asking, as his 
boy, for the asking, might get from him food or a 
bow or javelin. In the most enlightened modern 
communities, prayers are still offered for rain in 
drought, for favorable seasons and abundant harvests, 
for the restoration of the sick, for a prosperous voy- 
age, for victory in battle, for the staying of the fever's 
pestilence. The Archbishop of England prepares a 
form of prayer to be used to abate the murrain in 
cattle, or to avert the cholera. For other things 
devout men pray, that God would " hasten the time " 
when wars shall cease and oppressions come to an 
end; that He would "convert the world " to Chris- 
tianity [or, in some quarters, to Mohammedanism or 
Judaism] ; that He would " make " presidents and 
kings good and wise, and legislators just, and the 
community virtuous. They pray for themselves, or 



$28 PRAYER 

their children, that He would " make " them holy and 
faithful and righteous and unselfish, and victorious 
over temptation. 

Now, all this asking, often formal, but often, also, 
very ardent and earnest, proceeds upon the idea, more 
or less definitely held, that God is an individual per- 
sonage, dwelling by himself, overseeing and minutely 
directing, after an altogether human fashion, all hu- 
man affairs ; that everything which we ask for in 
faith He will give us directly out of hand, as a human 
father gives his child money, or a toy, or a book, for 
the asking, 

But when we outgrow this primitive and childish 
conception of God ; when we come to think of Him 
as Person, if you will, or conscious Mind, but not as 
a personage ; as Being, rather than a being; not so 
much just, as Justice ; not so much true, as Truth ; 
not so much loving, as Love ; not so much holy, as 
Holiness ; in short, as the Infinite Spirit, not a God, 
but God, then our approach to Him, our expectation 
from Him, our prayer to Him, must change its form. 
When we conceive of Him as the Universal Life, the 
one all-pervading Power, of which Truth, Righteous- 
ness, Beauty, Love are the correlative forms ; when 
we conceive of his Will as not a series of separate 
intentions, the volitions of the moment, but as the 
constant, unbroken, immutable stream of beneficent 
Energy ; when we think of this Will as a power that 
works always by the unchanging methods of law, — 
then we shall know that He gives nothing out of 
hand, but that all things are to be obtained by fulfill- 
ing the conditions, by using the appropriate means. 
We shall then give up the old ways of asking for the 



PR A YER 329 

true ways of seeking. The old ways will be seen to 
be irrational and barren. All of the old phraseology 
which, through habit and association, we may retain 
will be felt to be mythological and figurative. We 
shall gradually adjust our feelings and our words to 
our thought, and from very sincerity cast off the 
phrases that to us are no longer true, though the 
language of prayer will be always the language of 
feeling, not of science. 

When the irrationality of the old conceptions and 
language is first perceived, there is a tendency in the 
name of reason to throw off all that they repre- 
sented as being untrue as they. Men are saying : 
" It is irrational to believe in such a God as the 
churches present, let us boldly say there is no God ; 
the prayers of the churches are futile, let us re- 
nounce all prayer ; the religion of the churches is 
superstitious, let us throw aside all religion, and 
breathe freely and act naturally." 

If, however, we have learned to think that nothing 
which is native to man is altogether wrong or use- 
less ; if we are accustomed to believe that no error 
long maintains its hold of the human mind which 
does not contain a germ of truth, we try to find 
what this all but universal faith in prayer and habit 
of prayer really means. So that we may hold by 
the essential truth which the error represents — 
even if it misrepresents. 

Under the common ideas and language of prayer 
lie these truths, as it seems to me : — 

That there is a Power beyond the human powers. 

That this power is not to be resisted by us ; that 
if we try to resist or thwart it, we injure ourselves 



330 PRAYER 

and suffer ; that, if we are in accord with it, it 
blesses, strengthens, and prospers us. 

That we are closely related to and intimately in- 
volved in this power ; that it is a factor in all that 
we have and do ; that our wisdom is to know more 
and more of it, to search out its ways, learn its con- 
ditions, and then to adjust and conform ourselves to 
them. 

That this power is not only a physical force in- 
volving our physical being, but a spiritual force in- 
volving our spiritual being, to which we are intimately 
related in our minds, consciences, and affections ; 
that it is a moral order of the universe, as well as 
a material order. 

That we have faculties suited to knowing this 
power ; that, seeking it, we may find it ; that, work- 
ing with it, we receive its invigoration and share its 
life, becoming channels of its operation ; that, as 
our truest wisdom is to know it, so our truest life is 
to obey it, and our truest religion to trust it with 
entire acceptance, and to act with it in entire faith. 

That our growth in life, in power, in success, in 
joy, is in proportion to our likeness to, our reception 
of, our submission to, our working with, this Power 
which is more than we, which rules and orders the 
universe, and holds every atom of our bodies, and 
every thought of our minds, and every purpose of 
our wills in its law, while within its bounds we have 
a certain real, though limited, freedom of choice and 
action. 

This Power we call God ; that name to which we 
gladly revert from all other expressions, because it 
says so little and means so much ; means all that we 



PR A YER 



331 



can put into it of truth and goodness and might and 
beauty and life — and more. 

Prayer, in a rational and spiritual sense, is the 
seeking — and finding — God. It is the longing to 
reach the strength which is in his steadfast energy ; 
the peace which is in his unbroken order ; the love 
which is in his universal good-will ; the truth which 
is in his infinite thought ; the righteousness which 
is in his holy purpose. It is the bringing, the lift- 
ing up, of our mind, heart, conscience, and will into 
contact with Him. Then we see how far we are 
from, or how near we are to, that high ideal — to a 
likeness to which the identity of our nature with 
his pledges us as a possibility. Then, as from a 
mountain-top, we see our lives in their truer rela- 
tions, and better discover what is our true path. We 
see our sins in their true unworthiness, divested 
of the glamour of passion ; we see our difficulties 
and troubles and burdens in the light of the greater 
strength that shall cheerfully meet and overcome 
them, of the larger purpose that shall make them 
a blessed discipline. We see things in their far- 
reaching relations, and not in their short-sighted as- 
pects. The wrongs, the evil, and the darkness are 
beheld in the final order of the supreme Good. 

As we come to the rational and spiritual concep- 
tion of prayer, we, as I said, change asking to seek- 
ing. We first give up asking for outward and ma- 
terial goods as if they could be directly given ; for 
we know that, if we would have them, we must fulfill 
the conditions upon which they may be obtained, so 
far as our own exertions are among those conditions ; 
and must trust for what is beyond our power to those 



332 PRAYER 

forces which will not be changed to meet our wishes, 
but which will bring about the fulfillment of such 
wishes as are in accordance with them. 

Then we give up asking for spiritual benefits — 
for love and faith and holiness — as if they could be 
directly given; for we see that, in the spiritual 
realm also, law reigns and conditions must be ful- 
filled. But one condition of spiritual attainment is 
spiritual seeking, spiritual earnestness. Inspiration 
comes from aspiration ; spiritual life and health from 
the exercise of our spiritual powers. We no longer 
ask God to come down to us, or to reveal himself 
to us, except as a figure of speech ; but we strive 
to lift our spirits up ; to open our spiritual eyes to 
receive that light which is ever about us. As we 
know that, if we want health of body, we are not 
to ask for it, but to get it by obeying the laws of 
health (such as exercise in a pure atmosphere) ; so, 
if we want holiness, we must obey its laws by exer- 
cising holy feelings and wills, in the atmosphere of 
holiness, which is the holy spirit in good men, or 
God. Thus our prayer resolves itself more and 
more into communion and meditation, and then 
action ; and the inward exercise is a preparation for 
the outward, and, I will say, a needed exercise. Our 
actions fail in nobleness because they spring from 
superficial motives or a low ideal. The prayer of 
communion and meditation is precisely fitted to 
deepen and elevate our ideal by comparison with, 
and by companionship with, the Highest and the 
most Central. It gives us a universal and eternal 
standard, instead of a local, temporary, individual 
one. It lifts us to our own highest and best. It 



PRAYER 333 

helps to purify us from self-seeking, and to strengthen 
those powers and sentiments in us whose province 
it is to limit our passions, and rightly direct them to 
good and worthy ends. 

"To labor is to pray " is the often quoted maxim 
ascribed to the monks of old, — a source from which 
we should little expect it. We are urged now not 
to pray for, but to work for, the good we want. 
Simply to ask for it, instead of working for it, were 
indeed futile. We ought to leave off asking God 
to give in ways He never uses ; to be what He 
always is ; to do the things which He is always 
doing, or those which, by all claims, it is man's busi- 
ness to do. And if there be any way appointed (in 
that "nature of things" which, to the religious 
mind, is "God's will ? ') by which a thing is to be 
got, that way we must try to learn and follow. We 
must search out the ways of God, that, finding, we 
may walk and work therein. 

But life is not only action ; it is thought and feel- 
ing also. We must, then, exercise not only our 
will, but our thought and our feeling, if we would 
get the fullness of our life. A life given entirely to 
action is apt to be hurried and driven, wanting in 
depth, in elevation, in tranquillity. Its moral tone 
is easily lowered by reference to visible results and 
immediate effects. What shall keep the aim high 
and true, what keep the impulse steady and patient ? 
What but withdrawal, from time to time, into that 
higher realm of thought and feeling where, in con- 
tact with the highest, the best, the immutable and 
the eternal, we can revise our estimates, test our 
procedures, and purify our motives ? We need, in 



334 PRAYER 

this hurried, confused life of activities, to turn from 
the streets to the solitudes of the soul, where we 
may look up to the calm heavens and the steadfast 
stars, and drink of waters that spring from cool and 
unpolluted depths. This we do in the prayer of 
meditation and communion with the Spirit. And 
for such prayer we must carefully secure the hours, 
and faithfully use the opportunity. Our willingness 
to do so will be a good gauge of the height of our 
spiritual life. And, therefore, where we have the 
least willingness we may have the most need. 

I should not have said all — indeed I leave many 
things unsaid — if I did not add this : that it is not 
only in what we do for ourselves in prayer that its 
power lies. I spoke of companionship. In its calmly 
uplifted mood we become receivers of the Power 
beyond ourselves. Doubtless, whenever we act in 
the line of the action of that Power, in doing the 
things that are just, pure, true, and loving, we are 
receivers of the Life that then flows into and through 
our will. But also when, withdrawn from outward 
action, we think and feel, that quickening Spirit of 
truth and love and peace flows into our conscious 
souls. And so prayer is an inlet of God into our 
spirits, and lifts us above ourselves. Such help 
shall we disdain, or voluntarily cut ourselves off 
from such supplies? Surely by such companion- 
ship our manhood must be enhanced. 

The essence of prayer is reverent and trustful 
seeking ; the earnest desire, the upward look, and 
the confiding will. Whether these take form in 
acts, in words, or in thought and feeling alone, they 
are true prayer, and bring the answer and blessing 



PRAYER 335 

of prayer. And the highest reward of prayers is 
that they make reverence and trust to become more 
and more the constant mood of our souls, and, grad- 
ually ceasing from times and forms, we " pray with- 
out ceasing." 

But this is the completest attainment of piety. 
Toward it we should be tending. Few, perhaps, 
can count themselves to have fully attained. 

In the earlier stages of our spiritual growth we 
use set times of prayer — forms of words, our own 
or others'. We thus avail ourselves of the power 
which association gives to fixed times and places and 
familiar words to awaken feeling. The words are 
helps to give definiteness and strength to our de- 
vout emotions. It is a great moment in a boy's re- 
ligious life when he begins to use words of his own, 
and to know that his prayer is of no avail unless he 
really feels what he is saying ; and when some spe- 
cial need of comfort or help sends him, in real sense 
of need and in real faith, to the God who seeth in 
secret. As we go on to a more spiritual conception 
of God, and to feel that we are constantly enfolded 
in his presence, which is strength and love and holi- 
ness, our words grow fewer and less formal, as if a 
whisper were enough to reach one so near. In the 
deepest experiences the words are fewest, — "O 
God, help me ! " " God be thanked." In the high- 
est moments, the words utterly fail ; to attempt to 
use them chills the current of our feeling ; definite 
thoughts even are left behind ; we are 

" Rapt into still communion which transcends 
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise." 

But whether we speak or are silent, it is the 



336 PRAYER 

thought and the feeling which make the prayer. 
God is Spirit, and only what is spiritual can reach 
Him — be " heard " by Him, as we say in our figure 
of speech. The loudest, the most eloquent, the 
most devotional words, with no spiritual life behind 
them, we may say are not even perceived by Him. 
They are vacancy and nonentity. But not one sin- 
gle heart-throb of real feeling, of real yearning, of 
real trust, faith, reverence, devout thankfulness, but 
quicker than thought, surer than light, is felt by 
that infinite Spirit in whom we dwell. We know 
how little even human sympathy, when truest, has 
need of words ; but the pressure of a hand, the look 
from an eye, the glow of a face are full of meaning, 
felt and returned. So is it with the sympathy be- 
tween our spirits and the Spirit, between the child 
and the Father. 

To lift us out of our perplexities toward his clear 
truth, out of our shadows into his light, out of our 
burdens into his strength, out of our disappointed 
or unwise purposes into his will, out of our despon- 
dencies and frets and troubles and griefs into his 
peace, — this is the office of prayer. That we can 
find that light, that strength, that love, that peace, 
is the all-sufficient answer to prayer. Any special 
good or particular benefit seems trivial in compari- 
son — not to be named, not to be desired. 

Or if into our prayer of meditation and commun- 
ion we ever bring our special wishes for things, it 
will be only to see how those wishes look beside the 
thought of God. Can they stand that presence and 
that light ? 

Love, reverence, trust, thankfulness — these are 



PRAYER 337 

the essence of prayer ; these cannot fail to bring 
the answer of prayer ; they are the answer of 
prayer ; and the more we have of them, the less we 
shall have to ask for. 

O friends, in this world and life of ours, full 
indeed of joys and satisfactions, but also full of 
uncertainties, of anxieties, of duties not always 
clearly seen, and often haltingly performed, of dis- 
appointed expectations and sympathies imperfectly 
met, — is it not a great privilege that we can lift 
ourselves above ourselves ; that there is this Wis- 
dom, this Goodness, this Will greater than we, which 
we can take hold upon to keep us from falling and 
to steady and guide our uncertain steps — to which 
we can in trust leave so much that is beyond our 
control ? How is our responsibility lightened, our 
burden made easier, our way more plain ! How is 
our fainting courage reassured, and our faltering will 
reinforced, and our troubled heart calmed, when we 
but think of God, and remember that " his greafc- 
ness lies around our incompleteness — round our 
restlessness his rest ! " To be lifted above our- 
selves by communion and contact with the sanctity, 
the energy, the calmness of God ! Even so a man 
is reassured, and kept to his best, and lifted above 
himself by a pure and noble human friendship. 
Even so a little child waking in the night, affrighted 
at the darkness and the loneliness, reaches out and 
finds his mother's hand, and sure now that he is 
safe, stops his tears, and falls asleep until the day 
dawns. 

October, 1879. 



THE HOME 

"And though abroad the sharp wind blow, 
And skies are chill, and frosts are keen, 
Home closer draws her circle now, 
And warmer glows her light within." 

The season presses upon me the topic of Home. 
I shall try to speak of its foundation, its blessings, 
its disciplines ; if so I may deepen a sense of its 
worth and sacredness. 

I know the drawbacks and the deductions that 
must be made. I know that all homes are not true 
homes ; that none perhaps are perfect. But when I 
remember what I owe to the good and happy home 
which embosomed my childhood and sheltered and 
trained my youth, and when I think of the thousands 
of homes that have been and are to others what that 
was to me, I feel as if I were but paying a debt for 
myself, and for you too, in what I am going to say. 

Of course, I do not say that the home — the fam- 
ily — is all. The world — society — has claims on 
us, and opportunities and benefits for us, very need- 
ful for the development of our humanity, our charac- 
ters, and our powers. There have been good and 
noble men and women who have never known a 
home. I think they will tell you that they have 
always missed something ; that the best in them 
they owed to homes not their own. I know that 
we often find a more perfect sympathy outside the 



THE HOME 339 

home than within it. The very foundation of the 
home lies in the natural law which makes us seek 
outside of it. I of course know not what may in the 
future be evolved from our present forms of society. 
But I cannot foresee that anything can be better than 
a society which is a union of families. All organic 
physical bodies are formed from the union of cells ; 
and the cell-walls are broken, not to abolish cells, 
but to form new ones. I cannot foresee what may 
be evolved out of the present family relation ; but I 
deem the inquiry unprofitable. For I see that the 
family is very far from having exhausted its possi- 
bilities. 

I think we should be better employed in develop- 
ing and perfecting it, in making the most and best 
of it, than in imagining or seeking substitutes for it. 
We shall be better employed in studying its laws 
and obeying them, than in opening the doors to any 
lawless caprice. 

For I see that the family is — and I do not see 
why it should not always be — the best preparation 
for, and foundation of, society ; the best fitting-place 
for life's work ; the best nursery of all the sweetest 
and noblest traits of human character. It is this by 
its sympathies and its oppositions ; by what it gives 
and by what it demands ; by its privileges and by its 
duties ; by its satisfactions and by its disciplines. 

And the man who lives outside of it is a loser 
in both ways ; missing the benefits and the demands, 
the joys and the responsibilities. It is a sacrifice 
that sometimes has to be made, either from neces- 
sity or from a sacred sense of duty ; but it is none 
the less a loss. 



340 THE HOME 

The home is this that I have said because it is 
founded in love. If it be not so, it is not home, but 
only a house ; hollow walls, however painted and 
gilded ; drearily empty, however splendidly fur- 
nished. 

And, love being the sweetness and delight which 
it is, being the power and strength which it is, being 
the very presence of God in us which the Apostle 
tells us it is, — we have to note that in the home it 
is found not in one but in manifold forms. Did you 
ever think of that ? First, there is the love of hus- 
band and wife, that warm attraction which draws 
them away from all other ties to cleave to one an- 
other, and which in every true marriage remains, I 
suppose, supreme, whatever others are added. That 
is one kind of love, the conjugal. Then there is 
the love of parent to child, another kind of love, 
the providential love of care and protection, that 
leans downward to helplessness and inexperience. 
Then there is the love of child to parent, a still 
different form, the love that looks up in depend- 
ence and reverence, that flies to mother's arms and 
heart for shelter and consolation, to father's hand 
and mind for counsel and help. Then there is the 
love of brother and sister, still different, the love 
of equal sympathy and nearness of age, and like 
pursuits and thoughts ; a kindly, helpful friendship, 
whose roots run farther back than those of any 
other friendship, and into more places of memory 
and association. 

Nor is the list yet exhausted. Since the home must 
also be the place of hospitalities, we must add the 
love of kindred and neighbor, a kindliness which 



THE HOME 341 

goes out beyond the immediate home circle. And 
since there are always the poor at the gate, I must 
lastly name the love of humanity, the kindness that 
goes out to the needy and the forlorn, to those 
whose only claim upon us is that they are of com- 
mon race with ourselves, children of the one Father. 
And if we must not give to them at the gate, we 
must never fail to see that we find the right and 
wise channels through which they may be helped 
without being harmed. 

From so many springs may we, in the home, drink 
of this water of life, which flows forth from the heart 
of God, through all these channels, to our thirst. 
In so many ways does this atmosphere and breath 
of the Holy Spirit flow in and around us there, to 
tempt out all that is good in us, to soften and melt 
away all that is hard and evil. 

The fouiidi?ig of the home must needs be, as the 
first, so the most important thing. If the founda- 
tion be unfit or insecure, how can the building 
stand ? Or, since this is not a mechanical structure 
but an organic growth, I will say if the root be not 
healthy, or be ill set, how can good fruit be looked 
for? 

Consider the possibilities for good or evil, for joy 
or misery, for a noble life or a thwarted and ruined 
one, which hang upon the right beginning, and it 
will be evident that the founding of the home is not 
a matter to be lightly or carelessly undertaken. 

There is enough in marriage and parentage, and 
their possible consequences, to call for and awaken 
most earnest and serious thought. Even the happi- 
ness is too tender and deep for sport. I am always 



342 THE HOME 

pained when I hear young people laughing and jest- 
ing about love and marriage. It either shows a 
shallow soul, or if, as is sometimes the case, the jest- 
ing tone be assumed to hide real feeling, it is not 
wise, nor true, nor good. It is a matter too serious 
for jest. Serious, I say. I do not forget the beauti- 
ful joy — which I suppose no words can describe, no 
observation comprehend — when two hearts and 
souls love and are loved, and in the power of that 
attraction enter into a union from which all barriers 
are taken way. I see a joy which fills and floods the 
whole nature, brightens the eye, makes the step 
elastic, expands and fills every faculty with new 
energy, perfects the man and the woman. And this 
joy flows out from the lovers and sheds its brightness, 
and glow over other hearts, which, sunning them- 
selves in it, grow young again, as these spring-like 
days clothe with their soft beauty and tender light 
the bare boughs. But this cannot come from a 
thoughtless, from a superficial or trivial fondness 
which too often is mistaken for love. How often, 
indeed, and with what harmful, if not fatal, conse- 
quences, is such a fondness, which is little more than 
an animal magnetism, made the ground of a mar- 
riage, whose duties it is altogether unfitted to meet, 
whose trials it is utterly unable to tide over. For 
this mere fondness, this mere magnetism, delightful 
as it may be, over-mastering as it may be in its pas- 
sionateness, — even to the point of great momentary 
sacrifices for the possession of its object, — has yet 
no real moral quality in it, no spiritual element, no 
element of principle, no element of fidelity. And 
let me say that I believe that only this spiritual ele- 



THE HOME 343 

ment, this element of principle, this, at least seri- 
ously intended and earnestly purposed fidelity, can 
justify the intimate union which marriage is ; be- 
cause these can alone elevate and purify the relation 
and make it truly human. 

Stop, then, and think, you who would found a 
home by marriage. Think seriously, earnestly, hon- 
estly, sacredly ; for it is a very serious thing to take 
into your keeping the happiness of another. Still 
more serious to take into your keeping the charac- 
ter, the virtue, of another. And both of these are 
involved in marriage. The happiness may be the 
growing and deepening of faithful affection and true 
sympathy ; or it may pass quickly to wreck in in- 
difference, annoyance, irritation, contention. The 
character may improve in all that is noble, true, and 
sweet ; or it may silently degenerate. And this may 
be from no intention on either side ; but from the 
first mistake of rash haste, or thoughtless, uncon- 
trolled feeling, unregulated fancy. 

It is not enough, then, that there be an outward 
attraction, however powerful. It is not enough that 
the vision of the face be dear and the touch of the 
hand a thrill ; that the very presence in the room be 
restful and satisfying ; that the very sound of the 
step be welcome ; it is not enough that, as you say, 
you could kiss the very ground beneath her feet, the 
very book her hand has rested upon. With these 
there must be something beyond these. Pause and 
think. Is there a love, an attraction, of mind toward 
mind, of principle toward principle, of will toward 
will ? Do you sympathize in each other's thoughts, 
feelings, purposes ? Are you interested in the same 



344 THE home 

things ? Without this inward attraction, this spiritual 
sympathy, outward affectionateness cannot make a 
true union. Certainly not to those whose inward 
life of thought, feeling, principle, and purpose is at 
all developed. I do not mean that there are to be 
no differences. Still less do I mean that one is sub- 
missively to receive and adopt the opinions and 
tastes of the other. That might produce peace, — a 
kind of peace of subjugation. But mere peace is 
not the end of marriage. Our friend at the Radical 
Club told us that marriage is " a divine institution 
to secure perpetual conflict," — as the only method, 
he added, of developing a free personality. Of 
course, by conflict he did not mean quarreling, but 
the friendly collision of two self -subsisting minds and 
characters, like in unlikeness, various in unity, inde- 
pendent, yet in full sympathy. It is harmony, not 
monotony, that should be looked for in marriage ; 
and harmony is not the echo of one note, but the 
union of notes, different yet accordant, deepening 
and enriching each other. We commonly say that 
husband and wife should be the complements of each 
other, one having in predominance the qualities in 
which the other is deficient. I might say that there 
should be similarity in tastes, principles, and aims, 
with difference in temperament. This would suffice, 
I suppose, to furnish that variety of view and opin- 
ion which are needful to keep us from that rut of 
narrowness in thought and sympathies into which 
men and women are likely to run who live in contact 
only with those who think just as they do. 

Perhaps, if we look out for the points of true 
sympathy, Nature, that is, God, who made man and 



THE HOME 345 

woman, will provide all the needed difference in the 
masculine and the feminine difference. 

But, cries my romantic young friend, would you 
make marriage a matter of cold calculation ? Is not 
the heart an all-sufficient guide ? My dear friend, I 
too, believe in romance, in feeling, in enthusiasm. 
The marriage, the home, where they are not would 
be robbed of some of its human charm and glory. 
But, in important matters, head and heart must take 
counsel together. Feeling alone is open to many 
delusions. It must be made wise by thought. Hate- 
ful as merely mercenary considerations are in mar- 
riage or life, some regard must be had, in founding 
a home, even to the common prudential consider- 
ations of the purse. A man must not ordinarily 
ask a woman to the burden of poverty and its hard 
struggles, though he may ask her sometimes to bear 
with him some self-denials of very plain living ; and 
if she is true-hearted, she will not refuse. But I was 
speaking of still more important considerations ; of 
the serious thoughtfulness which is absolutely de- 
manded in the founding of home ; not cold calcula- 
tion, but the earnestness of purpose which seeks for 
true wisdom. " The mind must open the just and 
safe pathways for the unquenchable flames of the 
affections," says Mr. Weiss. Romance may gild 
and glorify many rough places in our lives. But 
there have not been wanting instances of men and 
women who were capable of single acts of romantic 
sacrifice, yet who were not equal to making any of 
those simple commonplace self-denials which are 
needed to make the home happy. 

But it is not for the companionship of two 



346 THE HOME 

alone, beautiful and beneficial as that is, that mar- 
riage and the home exists. By the sacred law, in 
the divine purpose, marriage is for parentage. And 
if the first is to be entered into, not rashly nor in- 
considerately, but with a certain consecration and 
under the sense of responsibility, surely this is no 
less true of the second. I might well say it is far 
more momentous. 

Let us, then, in reverence approach this great and 
beautiful mystery, the initiation of a soul in the flesh ; 
the birth of a son of man, a child of God. Surely 
some thoughtful foresight were here in place. And 
the first condition to be brought to this high office 
of fatherhood and motherhood is health. Where 
definite hereditary disease of any kind exists, it 
should be regarded as an absolute prohibition of 
parentage. But in every case, health can be born 
only of health, vigor of vigor. What a wrong to a 
child that it be brought into being overweighted, in 
the race of life, with a feeble constitution and the 
germs of ill-health. To escape this reproach might 
well engage the thoughtful purpose of those who are 
to be mothers and fathers. It might well induce 
the young woman to avoid the destructive excite- 
ment of fashionable life ; the injuries of dress, of 
self-indulgent habits, of indolence and neglect of ex- 
ercise. It might well be a powerful motive with the 
young man to keep his bodily vigor unimpaired by 
premature indulgence of passions, his constitution 
unharmed by vices. For remembering this law of 
heredity, they cannot say, " I harm no one but my- 
self." But it is not the body only which transmits 
itself ; the soul, the character, the disposition, the 



THE HOME 347 

temper, — these also transmit themselves. Surely 
it is a still greater wrong that a child should be born 
into the world overweighted in the moral contest; 
with tendencies to evil passions, dispositions, tem- 
pers. It seems a terribly hard law that the sins of 
the fathers should be visited upon the children. 
But the knowledge of the law ought to keep men 
from sinning. 

The remedy is in our hands, to make the law a 
dead letter, by not coming under its conditions. 
What a powerful inducement this ought to be to 
self-discipline and virtue ! For the virtues of the 
fathers are visited upon the children. That is the 
law, too ; and what a blessed law, — the hope of the 
world ! For the better world that we look for must 
come from better children born into it. From such 
is the kingdom of heaven upon earth. And to every 
man the most important thing is that which was born 
in him. 

The advent of the child in the home is the advent 
of a new life not to the child only. Father and 
mother are also new-born. First a new kind of 
affection, as I said, wells up ; then new hopes, new 
anxieties, new ambitions, plans, purposes, energies, 
and motives. 

Shall there not be a new consecration, a new reli- 
gion ; a secret awe before the mystery of this new 
life ? A secret sense that God has come very near 
in the new blessing, the new duty, the new need of 
wisdom and power ? Can any but a parent know 
all that we mean by the fatherhood of God ? 

The new-born child is the centre of the home ; 
almost its ruler, for all must bend to it. All come 



34§ THE HOME 

and bow down before it and bring gifts. And the 
novelty does not wear off for long, but is prolonged 
and repeated with the beginnings of intelligence, of 
noticing the outward world, and establishing relations 
with it. Then there is the first creeping, and the 
first standing alone, and the first step of walking ; 
and the first tooth, and the first spoken word ; and 
the first sickness with all its terror of inexperience. 

But how shall I venture to speak of all the tender, 
blissful experiences of the mother, or of all that she 
ponders in her heart ? 

The disciplines of the home, of which I have next 
to speak, begin very early, and are among its great 
blessings. They begin with the happiness which 
is an atmosphere in which so much that is good 
expands and so much that was ill disappears. They 
begin in the affections that uplift and purify. They 
begin in the silent but powerful influences of com- 
panionship, the power of character to mould and 
subdue and quicken character. They begin in the 
contact — the collision, if you will — of minds, which 
sets us revising our opinions, looking at things in new 
lights and broadening our views and our judgments. 
They begin in the necessity of consulting the wishes 
and the convenience and the pleasure and the will 
of another. They begin in that which makes self 
to be no longer the centre. They begin in the new 
duties, claims, responsibilities, and obligations as- 
sumed or imposed. They begin in the new cares. 
They begin in the new fidelities. They begin in the 
new self-denials, self-forgetfulnesses, and self-devo- 
tions. They begin in the new reverence for purity 
and goodness. They begin in the new need of self- 



THE HOME 349 

control and governing of feeling and temper. They 
begin with the new appeals to generosity and sym- 
pathy, and consideration for the feelings of others. 
They begin in the troubles and anxieties, in the 
annoyances and differences and irritations which call 
for patience and forbearance ; in the mistakes and 
errors which call for charity, and the transgressions 
which call for forgiveness. They begin in the rights 
which call for justice. They begin in all which calls 
for truth, frankness, honor, and chivalrous respect 
And where they begin they continue. 

Is not the home, then, a place admirably con- 
trived for the training of the character by its disci- 
plines ? Yet they may all be futile, if they be not 
understood, accepted, and used. 

The discipline of children by their parents in the 
home begins also very early. First, again, in the 
silent influence of disposition, temper, and charac- 
ter ; but very soon in direct disciplines of restraints 
and commands. These are absolutely needed for the 
child's welfare. The need of them sets the mother 
early to changing the mere fondness of caressing 
affection to the strength of true love which seeks not 
merely the pleasure, but the best good, of its object. 
And that best good of the child is secured by exact- 
ing respect and obedience. The demands of obedi- 
ence ought always to be reasonable ones, and the 
reason for them may often be given ; but not always, 
for the child should learn to obey implicitly, in the 
confidence that the command will always have a rea- 
son, and that the parent's wish is one reason. The 
utmost faith should be kept with the child, and the 
truth always spoken as always demanded. Promises 



350 THE HOME 

and denials, therefore, should not be hastily made ; 
but once made, they should be faithfully held to. 

Threatenings should be avoided, especially those 
which are made in terrorem, and not meant to be 
kept. Much lecturing, too, should be avoided. Re- 
proof should be direct, pointed, and strong, and then 
done with. Nothing is more irritating than the 
dribble and drizzle of complaint, and nothing more 
ineffectual. It is a great point to choose the proper 
time for the fitting word, whether of rebuke or coun- 
sel. The mother's blessed hour, which must not be 
lost, is when she puts her children to bed. It is the 
hour for sympathy and confidences and warnings ; 
for words that may sink deep and make a lasting 
impression. 

Teach your child unselfishness, not by precept so 
much as by asking him to share what is given him, 
by giving him the opportunity to do disinterested 
things, by asking services of him. If you give up 
everything to him and do everything for him, he 
will expect everybody else to do the same ; and how 
will he learn to do things for himself or for others ? 
Your mistaken unselfishness will have made him 
selfish. 

Do not formally inculcate piety, but make your 
child sharer in your own reverent and devout emo- 
tions. No formal tributes to virtue will have much 
effect with him if he finds you applauding some suc- 
cessful dishonesty as great shrewdness, or laughing 
at some falsehood as a good joke. But remember 
that virtue can be better learned by practice than 
by precept. The very games in which you join your 
children can be made the opportunities of learning, 
by putting into act truth, honesty, and honor. 



THE HOME 351 

Avoid conflicts of temper and will ; and when the 
conflict of will cannot be avoided, as sometimes it 
cannot, see that the child's unreasonable obstinacy 
be met, not by unreasonable obstinacy on your part, 
but by patient firmness ; so that the conflict shall 
not be between mere will and will, but between will 
on one side and reason and right on the other. 

The disciplines of the family are best accomplished 
where there are several children. They make their 
mutual rights respected with a kind of rough, but 
wholesome justice. Besides, it is not good for one 
to be the centre of all the thoughts and interest of 
his parents. 

The parent's opinions must not be too arbitrarily 
enforced upon the children, but they must be ex- 
pected to think and act for themselves, to learn by 
consequences and mistakes as well as by warnings. 

Leaving many things on this point unsaid, I pass 
on to speak of the griefs of the home. For these 
must come, as well as its great joys. They might 
be counted among its most precious disciplines, its 
deepest blessings. The shadow which we see pass- 
ing over other homes, and which we think of with 
dread — or dare not think of — as some day to reach 
us, when it falls, is found to be an overshadowing 
of angels' wings, an overshadowing of God. In the 
darkness that needs Him so much, He is found a 
present help. In the stress, the soul's strength is 
discovered. We can bear what we thought we could 
not bear. The spirit is uplifted, subdued, purified, 
made tender. When death enters the home, it hal- 
lows it. It brings a hush, a sacred silence, a holy 
peace. The little troubles are swept away. They 



352 THE HOME 

who pass together through a deep sorrow are bound 
by closer ties than ever before. Their inmost hearts 
are, perhaps for the first time, opened to each other. 
A friend who had watched all night with his wife 
by the bedside of their dying boy could say to me, 
"We were never more truly happy." Such was the 
exaltation of spirit in that hour ! 

There is a loss, one keenly felt, — a loss out of the 
home, out of the heart ; but there is a gain. The 
loss is outward, the gain spiritual. The loss, for a 
time ; the gain, if we will, for eternity. Life, hence- 
forth, may be less glad, but it can hardly fail to 
be more thoughtful, more earnest. Death is less 
dreaded, because more familiar. The spiritual world 
is more near since one we loved has entered there ; 
more real since we have a treasure in it. The home 
has begun to form beyond. 

There are other troubles which may fill the home 
with dismay, — business disasters, loss of property, 
bringing terrible anxieties and fears. These I am 
confident will be best met and borne, not by any 
concealment, but by the utmost frankness and fullest 
confidence between husband and wife. Here there 
should be a true partnership. For a man to let his 
wife go on, ignorant of the impending ruin of his 
business, spending as freely as ever, is not only un- 
just, but he is depriving himself of the support he 
might have in her sympathy, her fortitude, her good 
sense, her help in economies. Through fear of giv- 
ing her pain, he may be only preparing a greater 
shock. How often a wife's right-mindedness would 
have prevented a husband's desperate risks ! 

But in the home sometimes comes a trouble, an 



THE HOME 353 

anxiety, a grief, far beyond loss of wealth and the 
sharpest straitenings of poverty. When upon the 
wife's or the mother's heart comes the sad know- 
ledge of moral failure or weakness in husband or 
son ; when she sees him becoming a victim of in- 
temperate habits ; when she learns that he has lost 
not money only, but integrity and honor ; when the 
shadow of guilt and crime falls upon the home — 
who can speak of that anguish, far bitterer than 
death ? 

Remembering, then, the past, or looking forward 
to the future, shall we not renew our purpose to 
make the home more true, more pure, more just, 
more beautiful; to make it more the place of the 
highest affection, the fairest culture, .the noblest dis- 
cipline, the most consecrated joys, the most trans- 
figured sorrows, the sincerest religion ? Then it will 
be itself a better world, in which we may take shelter 
from evil tongues and exhausting work and wearing 
disappointments ; from hollow hearts, or failing for- 
tunes or unsatisfying ambitions. It will be the fore- 
taste and preparation of any better world we look 
for on earth, or beyond. God help us to be faithful 
to its opportunities ! 

In the blessed sympathies and disciplines of home 
is man trained for life here and hereafter ; and as 
we can find for our God no truer name than Father, 
so we can give to the heaven we hope for no better 
name than Home. 

February, 1879. 



LIFE, NOT DEATH 

There is but one word to be spoken to-day, and 
that word is Life — Eternal Life ; Life surviving all 
changes, Life persisting through all that seems to 
overwhelm it, Life victorious over death, Life that 
makes real death impossible to our thoughts ! 

How all nature speaks the word, yes, sings it as 
a psalm to our hearts, cheered by the softer sky, 
the warmer sunshine, the exhilarating air, the secret 
quickening through all our veins and nerves ! The 
first crocus of the garden sings it, and the first 
spring flowers that in the woods reward your search ; 
the swelling buds on the trees, the unfolding leaves 
of the rosebushes, and the maples flushing red with 
their blossoms ; the earliest green that hangs its 
harps on the willows not in lamentation but in joy, 
and the strong bright grass that answers to the call 
of the sun and the impulse of the rain. And even 
the trees that stand waiting gray and dry are thick- 
set, if we look closely, with the tokens of life. 

Yet there are those to whose heavy hearts these 
bright days bring no lightening ; from whom all this 
npspringing life around them cannot lift their bur- 
den. The sunshine seems almost to mock them; 
it cannot get beyond their eyes. The voices of joy- 
fulness jar with their sorrowful desolation; the 
light has no gladness to their eyes, dim with tears 
or deadened with woe, that cannot even weep. In 



LIFE, NOT DEATH 355 

vain does spring return, since not to them returns 
the touch of the vanished hands, and the sound of 
the voice that is still, and the eyes that were sweeter 
than any flower. 

In vain for them that grass and flowers spring 
anew out of the dark earth. The form they have 
laid away comes not forth, and shall never have a 
resurrection. 

The delicate leaf wounds them with a pain 
" whose balsam never grew." And so to them, in 
their sense of what is gone from them never to re- 
turn, however many returning springs they may 
have to meet, the voices of nature are powerless to 
bring comfort ; they are no more able to reach the 
seat of their loss than are the little words with 
which a child tries to comfort them, " Do not cry, 
mother ; you shall have all my dolls." 

No outward thing, not the lovely spectacle of the 
renewed world, can reach the aching, longing heart. 

There must be a deeper voice, and that voice 
speaks, " Oh, listen, listen ! " Not to the ear it 
speaks. It speaks to the soul ; it comes from the 
Spirit of which our souls are but the channel, and it 
says, Life, Life, not Death. Life, not to the frail 
body, whose atoms indeed perish not when it falls to 
dust and exhales to the air, but whose dust shall 
never be regathered into that form. Life, not to 
the body, but to the soul. Life, not resurrection, for 
that only can be raised up which was laid down ; 
and we mock the truth if we write upon the tomb 
or the headstone, " I shall rise again." The I, the 
self, the personal being whom you loved, who 
thought, who felt, who loved you, can never be laid 



356 LIFE, NOT DEATH 

in the tomb or beneath the sod. Not Resurrec- 
tion, but Life, is the word spoken to the soul and 
from the soul. 

Life, unbroken, continuous, uninterrupted, — not 
waiting for some distant resurrection day and an 
awakening at some trumpet's sound. But life going 
on, passing unchanged to new conditions. The life 
that begins here with the first spiritual thought, 
spiritual feeling, and spiritual experience ; that inner 
life of thought, and feeling, and experience of things 
that do not belong to the body and are not con- 
cerned in its life ; the inner, invisible, spiritual life 
of ideas and principles, and lofty reverences, and 
enduring affections for that which is invisible and 
enduring in man ; those secret, unprovable convic- 
tions and assurances of the soul, the truths which 
shine by their own light, and are revealed to us in 
the highest and deepest moments and experiences. 

And this is the word I bring to you to-day, unend- 
ing Life, immortal Life. I bring you to-day, " not 
an argument, but a message." 

There are arguments for immortality, — I have be- 
fore presented them ; arguments not amounting to 
a demonstration, but sufficient, as I think, to satisfy 
the mind with a reasonable assurance. But I do 
not present them to-day, nor do I speak of a Judean 
resurrection that seems to me impossible, and if 
possible, no argument for our own immortality. I 
bring you to-day, not an argument, but a message. 
I speak from my soul to your souls. I speak from 
an inward experience to your experience, or that 
which may be an experience to you. I bring to you 
a message from the chamber of death and from the 



LIFE, NO T DEA TH 357 

gateway of the tomb. And that message is Life, 
Life immortal, Life uninterrupted, unarrested, not 
cut off, as we so often say, but going on, not changed 
in any essential quality. 

I bring this message, that we could stand by the 
lifeless body so soon to be put out of our sight, so 
soon to perish, and yet have no sense of death, no 
feeling of mortality ; lifted up, in a way that seemed 
inexplicable, even beyond grief or sorrow, into a 
peaceful and happy calm, as if a serene and cheerful 
presence were filling all the room, the presence as 
of one who had laid aside all sickness and all sorrow 
and was himself in the fullness of life released from 
limitations. Was it not, then, most natural, in full 
accordance with the true feeling of the hour, to read 
lines written by that now lifeless hand, by that now 
most living spirit, as if his own voice spoke them ? 

"Weep not, my friends, rather rejoice with me, 
And in your life let my remembrance linger 
As something not to trouble or disturb it, 
But to complete it, adding life to life. 
And if, at times, beside the evening fire 
You see my face among the other faces, 
Let it not be but as a guest that loves you, 
Without whose presence there were something wanting." 

And these others, his also : — 

" Take them, O Death ! and bear away 
Whatever thou canst call thine own ! 
Thine image, stamped upon this clay, 
Doth give thee that, but that alone ! 

" Take them, O Grave ! and let them lie 
Folded upon thy narrow shelves, 
As garments by the soul laid by, 
And precious only to ourselves ! 



358 LIFE, NOT DEATH 

"Take them, O great Eternity! 
Our little life is but a gust 
That bends the branches of thy tree, 
And trails its blossoms in the dust ! " 

And to go on, taking up the Psalm, " Bless the 
Lord, O my soul ; and all that is within me, bless his 
holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget 
not all his benefits." And to follow on with a 
prayer filled not with mourning, but only with 
thanksgiving, with gratitude for the life which had 
been so long with us ; the life blameless and un- 
stained ; the life so full of genial activities and 
faithful use of faculties and talents committed to it ; 
so full of kindly affections and wide sympathies and 
helpful friendliness ; of gentle courtesy and charita- 
ble judgment ; of broad humanity and simple, sin- 
cere, unobtrusive piety. 

The prayer asked for no consolation, since none 
was needed beyond what was already given, already 
possessed in that quiet, cheerful, uplifted faith. It 
seemed a birthday, not a deathday ; a deep sacred 
joy, not a mourning. 

And at the portal of the tomb what words could 
be said but those old words with all their felt fresh- 
ness of meaning : " O death, where is thy sting ? 
O grave, where is thy victory ? Thanks be to God, 
who giveth us the victory." 

The word that I bring you to-day, then, is this, 
that the soul knows nothing of death, cannot con- 
ceive of it. That to all doubts and questions of the 
understanding it returns only the affirmations of its 
experience and inmost sense of immortality. 

It cannot believe in any death but that of the 



LIFE, NO T DEA TH 359 

body ; nor in that death as anything but a release of 
the real life into new conditions. The understand- 
ing may doubt, but the soul affirms ; the under- 
standing may gather proofs and arguments, but the 
soul already knows. " Demonstration in its own 
province is supreme, but there are times when argu- 
ment is silent before the deep incommunicable as- 
surances of the soul." 

And in the days that followed in the house, in re- 
turning to which might have been expected a sad 
and overpowering sense of a presence gone from it 
forever, instead of that was a sense of a bright in- 
visible presence, brightening every room ; what was 
gone seemed nothing in comparison to what re- 
mained. The spirit had not fled. He had not 
gone. To use again his own words, — 

" He did but . . . step into the open air, 
Out of a tent already luminous ; " 

and it seemed as if any moment he might enter visi- 
bly with his wonted bright greeting. And so it was 
most natural to speak of him constantly and cheer- 
fully. 

Whether this will always be so with those who 
remain in that home, I cannot say. It would seem, 
however, that it must be so. Or if there should 
come hours of loneliness and sense of loss, they 
must quickly be comforted and replaced by these 
higher, and I will say truer feelings, truer to our 
faith in immortality, truer to the soul's perceptions, 
which must be truer as well as higher than the sight 
of the senses. 

And now let me add that all this mood of feeling 



360 LIFE, NOT DEATH 

was perfectly quiet and natural. It was reached by 
no effort of thought, by no exertion of the will, by 
no determination to look above the grief, by no ex- 
citement of feeling, by no prayer even that the grief 
might be consoled ; the grief simply was not there. 
I need not say it was not from any hardness of feel- 
ing. It was simply that the sense of grief was swal- 
lowed up in the sense of life, the sense of loss 
merged in the sense of abiding spiritual presence. 
Death was swallowed up in victory. 

It was a surprise, a wonder to me ; in part, it was 
a mystery, I could not account for it, but it was 
simply a reality, an experience, — an experience of 
spiritual life. 

" Behold I show you a mystery," wrote the apostle. 
His mystery was that he and some of his disciples 
would know no bodily death ; while they yet lived 
in the body the Messiah would appear in the clouds; 
those who had died would be raised up from their 
graves to meet him ; those who still remained alive 
would have their bodies changed, to dwell with the 
Messiah in that kingdom of heaven upon earth, 
which flesh and blood could not inherit, but from 
which not only sorrow and crying but death itself 
would be forever banished. This was the apostle's 
mystery. 

But the mystery which I have shown you is this, 
that in the very presence of the lifeless body, where 
the senses tell us only of death, no movement, no 
whisper, silent, irresponsive, dead ; that at the very 
side of the grave, open to receive and hide forever 
and take to its decay and dust all we can see and 
touch of our dearest friend ; that, I say, in the very 



LIFE, NOT DEATH 36 1 

presence of death and corruption, we do pronounce 
the word life ; do feel immortality, and declare with 
inward assurance that the friend we love still lives. 

This is the mystery, that we cannot be satisfied 
with death so visible before us, cannot believe in it 
as having reached and destroyed that which we 
loved. 

The more we live in spiritual things the more 
easily will the frame of mind of which I have spoken 
come to us. For it is simply looking at death from 
the spiritual point of thought and feeling. If we 
live, not absorbed in outward things, not neglecting 
them indeed, but always feeling that higher and 
more important are the spiritual things, — the life 
of high thoughts, divine ideas, holy feelings, sacred 
principles, — what else can be so good a preparation 
for the life of the spirit when it shall have laid aside 
the earthly body ? What else but familiarity with 
spiritual things and spiritual estimates shall make 
us victorious over death, and give us the assurance 
that it touches not the spirit ? 

What else can make us possessors of the treasures 
which we shall not have to leave behind with the 
body, but can take with us in the spirit into what- 
ever world or form of life awaits us beyond ? 

This is to live the eternal life, the immortal life ; 
to live not supremely or chiefly for the things seen, 
which are transient, but for the things unseen, which 
are eternal. And what are these everlasting things 
over which death hath no power, the things in which, 
in the presence of death, we feel only life, and over 
which the grave hath no victory ? 

What are they but the things which are true, the 



362 LIFE, NOT DEATH 

things which are just, the things which are pure, 
the things which are honorable, the things which 
are lovely ? 

Let us think on these things ! 

Germantown, April 2, 1882, on return from the funeral of Henry 
W. Longfellow. 



IMAGES OF GOD 

We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the 
Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by 
the Spirit of the Lord. — 2 Corinthians iii. 18. 

The visitor to the British Museum finds his eye 
and step arrested at one of the entrances by two 
strange figures of stone that stand on either side, 
seeming to guard the passage. From the strong, 
sinewy body of a lion spread the mighty pinions of 
an eagle, and above them rises the head of a man, 
bearded, calm, severe. These are the images which 
Mr. Layard some years ago unearthed from their 
age-long burial in Assyrian sands. They stand here 
as they stood in Nineveh twenty-five centuries ago, 
in her splendid prime ; here at the entrance of a 
museum of sculpture, there at the entrance of a 
temple. Between them and hundreds like them, 
priests, and warriors, and conquering kings, and wor- 
shiping multitudes have gone up to their sanctuary 
to offer sacrifices and thanksgivings on the altar of 
Bel or Assur. Altars, long ago deserted and fallen, 
temples long ago heaps of ruin, kings and priests 
and people long ago vanished and perished off the 
earth. This work of their hands, which the sands 
of the wilderness have had in their safe-keeping, 
now revealed to the keen search and curious study 
of our nineteenth century. Strange, incongruous 



364 IMAGES OF GOD 

figures, indeed ; impossible creatures ! " Idols," 
shall we say, and pass on, with a pitying thought of 
those blinded people who know no better than to 
bow down to wood and stone ? I confess the 
strange figures had a great fascination for me, with 
their strength and grave dignity. I thought of that 
whole ancient world contemporary with these fig- 
ures ; of the strange Hindoo deities ; of Philistine 
Dagon ; of Egyptian Sphinx ; of Isis, crescent- 
crowned and holding the child in her arms, forerun- 
ner of the Virgin in the Roman Catholic churches ; 
of the rude, massive images of Mexico and Central 
America ; of the Diana of Ephesus with multitudi- 
nous breasts. I thought of Greece, with her culti- 
vated sense of beauty, carving the Minerva of her 
Parthenon in gold and ivory, or her Phidian Zeus in 
marble of Pentelicus. I thought of the forms of 
grace and loveliness which stood in other cham- 
bers of these great museums ; the Apollo, the Diana, 
the Venus of Milo. " Idols," all ; beautiful or gro- 
tesque, harmoniously proportioned or incongruous 
and monstrous. Idols, all ! 

And have we said all when we have said that, has- 
tening perhaps to drop our penny into the mission- 
ary-box, if some poor creature may yet be saved from 
that deadly sin of idolatry to the worship of the true 
God, "washed in the blood of the Incarnate God " ? 

But stop ! what is the missionary saying ? " The 
blood of the Incarnate God." Perhaps all the idol- 
atry is not in India and Thibet ! " Idolatry " — with 
a tone of pitying contempt ! Mr. Layard, who dis- 
covered these Nineveh sculptures, might teach us 
better, if any of us need teaching. 



IMAGES OF GOD 365 

" I used to contemplate for hours these mysterious 
emblems," he says, "there in those Eastern soli- 
tudes. What more noble forms could have ushered 
the people into their temple ? What more sublime 
images could have been borrowed from nature 
wherein to embody their conception of the wisdom, 
power, ubiquity of the Supreme ? The head of the 
man was the type of thought, the body of the lion, 
the emblem of might, while the pinions of the bird 
symbolized the swiftness of omnipresence. These 
were not idle creatures of mere fancy. A meaning 
was written in them." 

Yes, a meaning has been written in every image 
which the hand of man has ever shaped to embody 
his vague conceptions of the mysterious Power and 
Goodness in which the soul of man in all ages has 
felt itself encompassed or overawed ; that power 
which men felt above and about them, but could not 
see. To a faith that there was something which 
their eyes could not see nor their hands touch, that 
spiritual nature which lies in germ in all men im- 
pelled them. But that eye and hand might also be 
satisfied, they made these emblems and symbols, 
rude or refined. Thoughtful men always knew that 
they were but symbols, as we have abundant testi- 
mony in heathen writers. The ignorant clung with 
superstition to the visible figure, endowed it with 
magical power, and bowed before it with childish and 
groveling reverence. 

So everywhere, in the early ages, we find altars 
and temples ; and in every temple stood its image, 
the image of a God. 

In every temple, save one ! At Jerusalem, in the 



366 IMAGES OF GOD 

Holy of Holies, or inmost shrine of the temple on 
Moriah, there were winged figures of cherubim upon 
the lid of the ark; there was no image of Jehovah. 

For the word had been given to them, "Thou 
shalt make no graven images of Yahweh to bow 
down and worship before ; " and when, once a year, 
the high priest went up into the Holy of Holies, 
Yahweh was popularly believed to reveal himself in 
the form only of a luminous cloud, the shekinah. 
But the sacred books of the Jews taught them that 
man was made in the image of God. " In the image 
of God, created He them." Without stopping to 
ask just what was meant by this, or whether they 
comprehended its spiritual import, I wish to seize 
the thought. 

We are not to make any image of God ; we are to 
be the image of God. Is the thought too high ? Is 
the claim too bold ? Let the high thought uplift us, 
let the bold claim give us courage. Do not say, 
How can I, a weak, fallible, ignorant, sinful man, 
be the image of the perfect, holy, infinite, all-wise, 
all-mighty God ? But say this, rather : Cannot I, 
a man, capable of manly virtue, of holy feelings, of 
purity and unselfish love, of exalted thoughts and 
noble aims, having in me an immortal soul, and 
hopes and faiths that reach beyond death, — I, a 
child of God, — cannot I be worthy of my parentage ? 
— be like my Father ? be in some degree, and in a 
growing degree, what I honor and reverence in 
Him ? Is there any height of excellence toward 
which I may not aspire ? May I not be growing 
heavenly, godly, godlike ? The divine elevation that 
I feel in my best moments, may it not become more 



IMAGES OF GOD 367 

and more frequent and familiar ? Can my highest 
conception of God go beyond the best human quali- 
ties, conceived of in their perfect and infinite degree ? 
And is there any one of these, whether it be wis- 
dom, justice, love, holiness, or power, which every 
human being may not possess in some measure ? 
And in graving degree if he make use of his powers ? 

It is said that men always make God in their own 
image. But they may justly do this if man be first 
made in the image of God. It does not follow that 
God is only a gigantic ghost of man, a chimaera of 
the human fancy. Because we can only conceive of 
God under human attributes, it does not follow that 
God is only a projection of ourselves upon the blank 
screen of the unknown ; only a Brocken-shadow on 
the mists of imagination. 

But why should man have been irresistibly, and all 
but universally, impelled to set these highest quali- 
ties of humanity above and beyond humanity, above 
and beyond nature, above and beyond what he saw 
and touched, — a reality beyond his own dreams ? 
That is to be explained. And to me, at least, the 
best and easiest explanation is that there is a real- 
ity beyond man ; a Spirit like man's spirit — but 
infinite and perfect. A power, not ourselves that 
makes, not only for righteousness, as Matthew Ar- 
nold says, but makes for holiness, for unselfish love, 
for truth, and for spiritual beauty. 

The metaphysician proves to us that of the out- 
ward world we know nothing, but only of certain 
sensations in ourselves ; nevertheless, every sane 
mind when not entangled in metaphysics, instinc- 
tively believes, and I hold rightly believes, that there 



368 IMAGES OF GOD 

is an outward world, not the product of our own 
thought and independent of our sensations. So I 
think every healthy soul, not entangled in metaphy- 
sical speculations, trusts its own instinctive sense 
that there is a spiritual reality beyond ourselves, and 
comes back from speculative doubts to the intuitive 
faith that God is. 

If God is, and man is made in his image, — I should 
rather say since God is, and man is made in his im- 
age, — we see where we are to look for our know- 
ledge of God. We speak of nature as his manifes- 
tation ; and such it is so far as it can be. We see 
there power and order, a unity under variety, and a 
permanence under change. But moral qualities we 
do not see there. These, which are essential to our 
conception of God, and which are the truly divine 
part of Him, we find first in human nature. Of the 
divine justice, goodness, love, purpose, thought, — 
of these human nature is the revelation. Thus in 
the human spirit we must look for God, and not 
till He has been found there, and only because He 
is found there revealed, do we find beneficence, 
thought, purpose in the world of matter. That 
would be to us but an automatic machine, self-regu- 
lated and having no relation to man (except as man 
had gradually and involuntarily adapted himself to 
it, and become, in long ages, adjusted to his environ- 
ments), had we not hints of God in man. 

Look not abroad, then, for proofs of God ; look 
within ; look into the souls of good men ; look into 
your own soul in its best moments and highest ex- 
periences ; find it in its best moments bowing be- 
fore a better than itself ; in its highest experiences 



IMAGES OF GOD 369 

looking up to a higher than itself, to the Most High ; 
finding its most vigorous strength reinforced from 
beyond itself ; and its vastest thought but a looking 
upon some portion of one infinite truth. 

Man the image and revelation of God ! Too long 
has man, in the supposed interests of religion, been 
decried and degraded. To honor God, He has been 
pictured as an unapproachable sovereign, with the 
attributes of an oriental monarch, and man's at- 
titude has been declared to be that of a prostrated 
slave. 

Man is beginning to stand upright before God, — 
his child, his Son. 

And we see what is the full meaning of the word 
by which, from distant ages, — for this is not a dis- 
covery of Christianity, — man has given to God the 
name of Father. This word we now see means not 
only beneficent care and superior wisdom ; it means 
kinship of nature ; an identity of the human spirit 
with the divine spirit. Not only are we made in the 
image of God, as a sculptor might make an image 
of a man in his likeness ; we are, as spirits, " par- 
takers of the divine nature," and truth, justice, 
love, in us, are not only like these qualities in God, 
but they are identical, the inflowing and indwelling 
of God. 

Does not this thought clearly mark out to us our 
aim and destiny, — to grow up fully into their like- 
ness through the fullness of this indwelling ; which 
requires only that we should be true to our best 
selves ; should seek for and obey our highest thought 
and our best feelings ? That in the choice which 
is every hour offered us between the higher and 



370 IMAGES OF GOD 

the lower in thought, motive, and action, we should 
choose the higher ? 

Likeness to God has been the aim which the best 
and wisest men have set before us. This Pythag- 
oras taught to his disciples. This Plato and Zeno 
insisted upon as a motive to virtue. And Epictetus 
said that he who would please and obey God must 
be like Him : " Faithful as God is faithful, benefi- 
cent, noble as God is in all his words and actions, 
behaving as an imitator of God." And in the same 
language in which Plato and Epictetus wrote and 
spoke have come down to us the more familiar words 
of Jesus : " Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven 
is perfect." 

Our thought and purpose, then, if we follow these 
great teachers, will be — must it not be ? — to carry 
out as speedily and as far as we are able in our char- 
acters and our lives our highest ideals of excellence ; 
to live up to the best that is in us : to be true sons 
of God, true men and women ; to take our birth- 
right ; to grow up into his likeness, and mould our- 
selves into his image. 

Do we conceive of God as spirit ? Then only as 
we live in the spirit, grow in spiritual-mindedness, 
act from spiritual motives, and judge by spiritual 
estimates, are we fulfilling the objects of our crea- 
tion and becoming what we were made to be. 

Do we conceive of Him as truth ? Then only as 
we love and reverence the truth ; only as we speak 
and live the truth, loyal to it at all costs ; only as we 
put away from us every form of dissimulation and 
deceit ; only so are we fulfilling the object of our 
creation and becoming what we were made to be. 



IMAGES OF GOD 37 1 

Do we conceive of Him as justice, as righteous- 
ness ? Then only as we are just in our thoughts 
and in our dealings, scrupulous of the rights of 
others, seeing that no man suffers a wrong at our 
hands ; only as we keep a conscience quick to see 
and to do what is right, are we fulfilling the object 
of our creation and being what we are capable of 
being. 

Do we conceive of Him as love ? Then only as 
we are love, as we regulate all our motives by ref- 
erence to others' welfare, as we govern all our con- 
duct by the thought, not of self but of man, are we 
realizing what, as God's children, we ought to be. 

Do we think of Him as holiness ? Then only as 
we become holy as He is holy, " holy in all manner 
of conduct," are we worthy to be called the sons of 
God, and realizing that which by our nature we are 
called to be. 

I said that in the temple at Jerusalem, there 
stood no image of God. But once there stood there 
a boy of twelve years, who, to the appeal of his par- 
ents, answered : " Know ye not that I must be about 
the affairs of my Father ? " 

And later, the same stood there, a man, who, 
looking round upon the crowd buying and selling 
and shouting, filled with indignation at the desecra- 
tion cried : " Ye have made my Father's house a den 
of thieves ! " 

He seemed, to some who looked on, in his love 
and his righteousness, " the express image of God." 
Many in later times have called him God, and wor- 
shiped the image for the reality with a worship that 
cannot but seem to us as idolatrous, — the worship 



372 IMAGES OF GOD 

of a created and visible personage for the Invisible, 
Increate, Almighty. 

Jesus never in any word of his that has been re- 
corded called himself God. When charged with 
making himself " equal with God " he put aside the 
charge, and spoke of himself only as one whom the 
Father had " sanctified and sent." 

He loved to call himself " Son of Man." A son 
of God he also was in very truth. 

Men have thought to honor him by speaking of 
him as superhuman, and as unapproachable in his 
perfect manhood. Yet those who were nearest to 
him and walked with him in intimacy did not speak 
so. Quickened by his spirit they cried : " Behold 
what manner of love hath been bestowed upon us, 
that we should be called the children of God ! " 

I have been interested in seeing how the highest 
claims that are made for him in the New Testament 
writings are in the same writings, even in the same 
words, claimed for his disciples. 

Is it said of him that " in him dwelt all the fullness 
of the Godhead bodily " ? Paul prays for his fellow- 
disciples that they "may be filled with the fullness 
of God" (Ephesians hi. 19). 

Is it said " God was in Christ, reconciling the 
world to himself"? John says, "If we love one 
another, God dwelleth in us" (John iv. n). 

Is he called "Son of God"? Paul writes, "As 
many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons 
of God." And we are told that it pleased God, " in 
bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain 
of their salvation perfect through suffering " (He- 
brews ii. 10). Then he was not perfect before he had 
suffered, and could not have been God. 



IMAGES OF GOD 373 

Think, now, how wonderfully, how admirably this 
world, this human life, is fitted to be a training-place 
of our souls toward this high aim, this divine ideal. 
This world, this life, with its opportunities and its 
demands, its pleasures and its duties, its joy and its 
discipline, its peace and its pain, its happiness, an at- 
mosphere in which much good may grow ; its trials, 
losses, sufferings, calling out our courage and our 
patience ; all its human relations calling for the exer- 
cise of justice, forbearance, benevolence, self-forget- 
fulness ; its varied work calling out our energies ; its 
bereavements sending us home to the tender heart 
of our Father. For it is not merely in the contem- 
plation of the closet and the church, but far more in 
the arena of actual life, that we are to be trained 
and moulded into the divine image. 

A sculptor sat at midnight in his studio, alone. 
Around him in the dim light of his single lamp lay 
the implements of his art, the works of his hands. 
As he sat there buried in thought, his life seemed 
to pass before him ; the hopes and aspirings of his 
youth, the struggles and passions and endeavors of 
his manhood, the fulfillment or failure of his age. 
Before him, covered with a veil, stood the figure 
upon which he had concentrated the best hours and 
inspiration and effort of his life, to which all his 
other works had been but as studies ; the one great 
work upon which his fame and his fate should rest. 

As he sat thus in retrospective thought, suddenly 
a light shone about him, and, looking up, he beheld 
an angelic form, adown whose shining robe of white 
flowed locks of celestial brightness. And in tones 
of clear music, the angel spoke to him: "Is thy 



374 IMAGES OF GOD 

work done ? For the king has sent for thee ; and at 
the sunrising must thou come into his presence, 
bearing with thee thy life-work, — the statue thou 
hast been chiseling to stand in the Halls of the 
Eternal Palace. Unblemished must it be in coun- 
tenance and limb ; of stainless purity ; of perfect, 
harmonious proportions — else it cannot be admitted 
there." 

Then the sculptor rose ; with trembling hands 
withdrew the veil that hid his statue, that the spirit 
might look upon it, and stood with downcast eyes 
to hear the judgment, while already forebodings 
began to mingle with the hopes which had filled his 
heart. There was silence ; and then a sigh of un- 
speakable sorrow seemed to fill the air of the room 
with its accent of pain and reproval. And the old 
man looked up, and lo ! the statue seemed strangely 
altered. In the penetrating light which shone 
from the angel's countenance, every feature, every 
line stood out in startling distinctness ; strange 
roughnesses were revealed, imperfections, distor- 
tions, unseen before. Then, with tones of deep 
sorrow, the angel said, "Is this the work which 
your lifelong study and labor have wrought ? For 
whose completion your Royal Master has given 
you time, instruction, opportunity ; for which he 
has furnished you lavish means and the fairest 
models ? Is this the image, so blemished, ignoble, 
soulless, dwarfed, which you offer for a place in the 
Palace Beautiful ? This, to stand with the forms 
of faultless mould that there abide ? Ah ! see, those 
lines which seam the forehead and the cheek too 
clearly tell of unholy passions. Anger and malice 



IMAGES OF GOD 375 

have left their mark ; and Pride has left her stamp 
upon lips curled in scorn against the humble and 
the poor. Evil thoughts and feelings have passed 
like a blight over the form that should have stood 
erect in godlike fullness of stature, now shrunken 
and bent ; and the hand that should have been out- 
stretched in open beneficence is tightly clinched in 
selfish avarice. Oh ! impress of hours wasted, and 
worse than wasted ; of a life misspent, of talents per- 
verted ! For, unknown to thyself, old man, every 
motion of thy heart, every thought of thy mind, 
every action of thy life has transferred itself to the 
marble ; and it stands the image of thy soul ! It 
should, it might have been the image of thy divine 
master, the image of a god ; and it is — what thou 
hast made it — what thou art ! " 

Then there was silence in the room and darkness ; 
and then the sculptor — awoke. For it was but a 
dream. He was yet young ; his life lay yet before 
him, and his life's work. But he never forgot the 
lesson of that night. 

" In the still air the music lies unheard ; 
In the rough marble beauty lies unseen ; 
To wake the music and the beauty needs 
The master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen. 

" Great Master, touch us with thy skillful hand ! 
Let not the music that is in us die : 
Great Sculptor, hew and polish us, nor let 
Hidden and lost Thy form within us lie ! 

" Spare not the stroke ; do with us as thou wilt ! 
Let there be nought unfinished, broken, marred ! 
Complete Thy purpose that we may become 
Thy perfect image, O our Father, God ! " 



-HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP" 

We are fond of dwelling upon Man as a Will. 
We urge it as his human quality, that which makes 
him greater than the lower creatures, that he has 
the power of self-directed thought, of self-chosen 
virtue. We count it his crown that he can know 
himself, can direct himself, can discipline himself. 
We appeal to him continually, in our exhortations, 
to be true to the responsibility which belongs to 
such capacities ; to be true to himself, to put forth 
his will and his conscience in the choice of good ; 
in the doing of right ; to make himself what a man 
should be ; not to fail in doing what a man should 
do. We expect him to control his passions, to mas- 
ter his feelings, to govern his appetites, to rule his 
impulses, to conquer his weaknesses. We ask him 
to use his opportunities ; not to be enslaved by cir- 
cumstances, but to master and mould them ; not to 
yield to misfortunes and sufferings, but to make 
them serve him ; and to rise superior to defeat. 
The very powers of nature, which he cannot change 
and is helpless to resist, he must use to turn to his 
purposes. And when he bends in reverence before 
his God, it must be no slave's prostration of terror, 
but a son's voluntary homage, which bends the knee, 
but looks straight into the Father's eye and asks, 
" What work can I do for and with thee to-day ? " 
That alone is felt to be a noble life which is self- 



HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 377 

trained to noble ends ; which voluntarily assumes 
the reins of its own government, and freely accepts 
the obligations of duty. 

So we preach self-reliance ; we preach faith in man, 
confidence in human faculties and human nature. 
Mr. Emerson sounds our tonic note : " Trust thy- 
self; every heart vibrates to that iron string. In 
self-trust are all virtues included." And another 
clear and eager voice declares that " Religion is 
Man's effort to perfect himself." 

There, perhaps, we hesitate. At least I do. I want 
to move an amendment. I am willing to say, Re- 
ligion is man's effort after perfection, as a partial 
definition. Man cannot perfect himself by himself. 
Man's effort is not the whole of man. I am reminded 
that there is another side. What I have stated is 
but half the story ; it is all true, yet but one hemi- 
sphere of the truth. I think how much of our life is 
instinctive, unconscious, and involuntary ; how much 
our characters owe to influences not of our choice ; 
how much power circumstances have over our lives ; 
in how many ways our will and purpose are but a 
single element among many that bring about a result ; 
how often a flash of instinctive feeling makes things 
clear to us, after which our thought had striven in vain 
by conscious intention ; how often self-conscious- 
ness hinders and spoils our actions ; of the charm of 
spontaneous and impulsive persons, of the beauty of 
a virtue that is not an effort or struggle (we never 
think of angels trying to be good). I remember the 
silent but mighty power of character, above teaching. 
I recall what poets, orators, artists have said of their 
best things being said and done without effort, when 



378 HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 

they were carried beyond themselves and beyond 
their intention and their will, building better than 
they knew. Surprised themselves, are they, at clear 
thought and fitting word and glowing image which 
seemed not their own. We hear the saint and 
prophet speak of possession and illumination ; of a 
divine word coming to them and a Spirit dwelling 
in them from above. Our own souls have felt the 
touch and thrill of that divine contact ; have heard 
the whispers of the Spirit in us, akin to us, but not 
ourselves. 

Besides, then, the self-conscious, the self-knowing, 
the self-directed life of thought, will, conscience, is 
this other element of life, the unconscious, the recep- 
tive, the spontaneous. 

First, in the vital operations of the body, — the 
circulation of the blood, the breathing of the lungs, 
the assimilation of the food, many actions of the 
nerves and muscles. I do not will to feel cold or 
pain, to laugh, to wink, to weep. These processes 
are taken out of the charge of our wills ; they are 
involuntary, automatic. The moment we try to 
breathe evenly, or to time our heart -beats regularly, 
we fail. The more we think about our digestion the 
less well it goes on ; and whenever we have to think 
about it, it is disease not health. These vital pro- 
cesses go on fulfilling the creative law without our 
choice or determination. Think that fully one third 
of our life is spent in the unconsciousness of sleep. 

There are still higher automatic operations of our 
bodily systems. The brain itself, organ of conscious 
thought, carries on processes of perception, processes 
of thought, in an automatic way — what is called 



HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 379 

unconscious cerebration, the thinking in dreams, in 
reverie or day-dreams ; memory as distinguished from 
recollection, — how often we try in vain to recall 
some name or person ; and how words, scenes, faces, 
sensations, long passed and forgotten, startle us with 
wonder, delight, or pain, springing up unbidden with- 
out wish or will of ours. It is as if every perception, 
every sensation, every feeling, imagination, thought, 
took possession of some fibre of the brain and 
became permanently organized into it ; ready ever 
afterward to reappear when from any cause that 
fibre was set vibrating. It is Mr. Bain's notion that 
such is the case. So trivial are some of the impres- 
sions thus firmly held that we are led to believe 
that every minutest experience of our lives is recorded 
there. People recovered from drowning tell us that 
it is as if their whole lives in smallest detail passed 
swift as a flash before their sight. If in the spirit 
which uses the brain every experience of thought 
and feeling be thus also recorded — what a book of 
judgment do we carry with us through eternity. 
How unerring for evil and for good. But for the 
duration of our bodily life it is easy to see what a 
storehouse of impressions, pictures, sounds, thoughts, 
we have here, behind every present moment, behind 
every conscious thought. How many things are in 
our minds which yet we are not thinking of! It 
seems as if the "gray matter" of the brain had 
power of itself to think, but only — only — wJicn the 
mind has once tised it. What a storehouse ! What 
a background ! What an ever-attending companion- 
ship to all our life of present thought and activity ! 
When the poet's or artist's imagination, the speaker's 



380 HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 

thought, has kindled his brain into excitement, what 
thronging fancies, quick-coming thoughts, swift and 
fitting words, glowing images, flock to lip or hand ! 
Is it strange that coming from a past self, so long 
forgotten, they seem new-created, seem not himself, 
but suggestions from beyond himself ? Is it strange 
that men in certain moods are startled with voices, 
apparitions ? How many mysteries this uncon- 
scious cerebration may explain. I do not say that it 
explains all. 

In dreams, and the state called sleep-walking, 
the brain, as an automatic machine, carries on pro- 
cesses that ordinarily are done by conscious will and 
self-directed effort. The dream that men so often 
count prophetic of the future is rather the record 
of the past, unshaped and unregulated by conscious 
thought and intention. Our dreams, however, may 
be self-revelations, and may be valuable for self- 
study by indicating what is the unconscious under- 
current of our thoughts and feelings, what thoughts 
and desires are getting organized into our brains 
and nerves, so that they come out to play when 
watching conscience and will are not on guard. They 
may show us in what directions we are drifting, and 
give us useful warning of unintentional lapse. Still 
better, perhaps, will our day dreams, our reveries, do 
this. 

There is a constant tendency in us for things to 
pass from the conscious to the unconscious state. 
This is the law of our growth. This is the pro- 
cess from intention to habit in body and in mind. 
Thought, will, conscience, become organized into 
character, which is the deposit of disciplines, liber- 



HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 38 1 

ated into the spontaneous state. For it is the sin- 
gular fact, that what passes thus from the free will 
and enters the domain of organic law becomes not 
enslaved but liberated. For all organic action 
appears to us more free than intended action. It 
has become spontaneous. Not that the will is 
excluded, but it acts without hindrances and so is 
not made conscious of itself. There can be no 
grace of movement till we have ceased to think 
how our hands or feet are placed or moved. The 
fine tact which is the charm of good manners, or 
of style in writing, may be born with a man, a de- 
posit from his ancestry, or may be an attainment of 
his own culture ; but in either case it has passed 
from a conscious to an organic state ; it is no longer 
a definite choice or volition, it cannot explain itself 
or know itself. What is it Carlyle said about uncon- 
sciousness as the essential element of genius ; of all 
virtue ? " If Adam had remained in paradise, there 
would have been no anatomy and no metaphysics ; " 
that we spoil ourselves by knowing ourselves ; that 
to be conscious we have a body is to be already 
diseased ; to be conscious we have a soul is to be 
already fallen from innocence ; that when a man 
begins to inquire into the grounds of his faith he 
has already ceased to believe ; that they do best 
who know not what they do. Yes, but worst also. 
For this also is but half the truth. And what is it 
that Mr. Emerson says, which sounds so ungracious 
towards those who by self-discipline are trying to 
be good, when he declares one to whom goodness is 
cheerful, natural, and easy, to be a far lovelier sight 
than Grump with his grunting resistance to a legion 



382 HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 

of devils. It is good as against a sour and ascetic 
virtue, but this also is but half the truth. 

But this is the side of the shield we are now look- 
ing at ; the spontaneous, natural, impulsive, uncon- 
scious, as against will and effort. We love the 
spontaneous ; we are moved by the impulsive. The 
orator does not become perfectly eloquent, carrying 
his hearers away with the spell of his speech, until 
he has lost himself in his theme, and is himself car- 
ried beyond himself ; no longer directing his will to 
the choice and arrangement of his words. 

The artist struggles and works laboriously over 
his canvas or his clay with careful effort, but it will 
not glow with life till in some happy moment he is 
seized above his will and, he knows not how, gives 
the electric touch of inspiration that lifts mechanical 
work into artistic creation. Unconscious of self, of 
fatigue, of hunger, of time, he is possessed by the 
thought, the feeling, the beauty he would express. 
And what is genius but that happy organization 
which makes this possession frequent, so that the 
forces which in other men are hindered, obstructed, 
or suppressed, in some one flow free, spontaneous, 
and unhampered ? 

Now it is much the same in our moral life, in the 
creation of character, the finest of arts, the building 
up the stature of the perfect manhood, the Divine 
Image. Most men are so well born in some re- 
spects — thanks doubtless to some ancestral fidelity 
to the divine laws — that in those directions they 
need only live out the spontaneous natural impulse. 
Few men are so well born, but that in some other 
respect they must pass through conscious self-dis- 



HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 383 

cipline, control natural impulse, resist temptation. 
But in these cases the virtue which we respect will 
not be the goodness which we love, till the stage 
of struggle and conscious effort is passed, and the 
virtue has become organic and spontaneous, like 
the goodness of God ; till it flows forth as waters 
fall, as birds sing, as roses blow, because they cannot 
help it ; till it has become natural to the man, if not 
born in him, yet he born into it. This surely is the 
sweetest, truest goodness, the flower and perfume 
of character. I am not speaking of merit. It is not 
a question of merit, but of quality ; what is lovely 
to God and man. Perhaps this is the truth hidden 
in the popular doctrine of the churches about regen- 
eration. But they state it so rudely and with so 
little discrimination that they make it a falsehood. 
They so lose sight of quality in insistence on spe- 
cial methods and agencies ; they seem so sure that 
there is no light save what comes through church 
windows, no water of life save what runs through 
church spouts ; they so belittle the grace of man 
and the grace of God ; above all, they are so voluble 
in casting discredit on all " natural " goodness as 
being worthless and accursed beside the artificial 
article raised in church hot-houses under the stim- 
ulus of the fires of the pit, that we cannot always 
have the needed patience to search out the grain of 
truth in the chaff. 

It is plain that if we are continually studying our 
moral condition, dissecting our characters, examining 
our moral growth, working over our sins and weak- 
nesses, we are in great danger of becoming morbid, 
— moral dyspeptics. There may be an excess, as 



384 HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 

well as a deficiency of conscientiousness ; there may- 
be a virtue which is a bondage, so hampered by fear 
of transgression and painful endeavor to walk the 
crack of rules, that it can never take the free stride 
of manhood. Such is not the liberty of the sons of 
God, who are emancipated from rules and regula- 
tions into the realm of principles and law. 

So that not merely are spontaneousness and un- 
consciousness the best result of self-discipline, but 
also one of its methods. If you watch the pot it 
will not boil, says the homely fireside proverb ; if 
you watch the plant it will not grow. We must 
trust ourselves to natural, silent processes, to unob- 
served methods. Effort is but one element of our 
moral growth ; whether the effort that constrains 
and subdues the evil within us, or the effort that 
consciously chooses and lays hold of the good. There 
is a whole other realm of mighty power to mould our 
moral being, — I mean the realm of influences. We 
do not become good only by trying to be good ; but 
quite as much also by forgetting ourselves, even our 
self-culture, — absorbed in other things, and receiv- 
ing, as in sleep, abundant and healthful stimulus and 
nourishment from the silent operation of the good 
about us, and the natural, unwatched movements of 
the good within us. Just as our bodies grow not by 
the voluntary exercise only, but quite as much by 
silent influences, the operations of light, air, and the 
electricities in which we are embosomed, which enter 
into us and weave our tissues into shapes of health 
and strength. 

Now, it is precisely on the unconscious, involun- 
tary side of our nature that we are open to influence 



HE G1VETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 385 

from beyond and above ourselves. Our minds are 
recipient as well as creative ; our consciences are 
recipient as well as self-determining. Our intellec- 
tual condition, — how largely it is dependent upon 
our inheritance of temperament, of race, of civiliza- 
tion, of tradition, of family. How few of our ideas, 
or opinions, even, are strictly our own. I need not 
say how much our characters and moral estimates 
are modified by inheritance and surroundings. How 
familiar the experience of the influence of compan- 
ionship ! What mysteries of attraction and repul- 
sion ! Who does not know persons whose presence 
calls out all that is best, noblest, sweetest in us, 
quite outside of any will of ours ? We are lifted 
above every mean thought or base purpose ; " our 
souls to higher levels rise;" while the presence of 
others brings out our least worthy qualities, and we 
are ashamed of what we are led to think, to say, to 
do, and every better thought or nobler sentiment is 
chilled before them. Thus our characters are in 
part moulded by the moral tone of the community 
in which we live in ways we have not sought and 
cannot definitely detect. Our virtue is only in part 
ours, our vice only in part ours. 

We live environed by and immersed in these mul- 
titudinous influences. They do not supplant our 
own moral energy or displace our responsibility ; but 
they do most certainly modify both. They flow into 
the veins of our unconscious and receptive life. Nor 
are these influences, as I believe, confined to the 
society in which we visibly move. The whole realm 
of spirits must contribute to it. As the powerful 
force which maintains life upon our planet comes 



386 HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 

from a sun nearly a hundred millions of miles away 
in space ; nay, even in part from the star-suns whose 
distance is absolutely incalculable ; so we may be- 
lieve our spiritual life to be acted upon by the 
whole world of spirits. Secret and mysterious in- 
fluences touch our thoughts, our feelings, our con- 
sciences, and our wills from sources beyond our 
cognizance. 

But, supreme above all these sources of influence 
in might and beneficence must surely be He, — the 
Supreme Spirit. Since God is, surely his energy — 
the energy of perfect and infinite truth, justice, 
holiness, love, for that is what we mean by the 
name God — must pervade all worlds and reach all 
souls. Of all influences, his must be mightiest, pur- 
est, sweetest, nearest, and most intimate. Of all 
companionships, the fellowship of the Spirit must be 
most quickening, most elevating, most enlarging. 
Of all communion, that which to our spirits must be 
most precious, most helpful, most comforting, most 
deep, most peaceful. But our spiritual state must 
determine our ability to receive. 

For this recipient side of our nature, spontaneous 
and free as it is, has its conditions. Precisely be- 
cause it is organic it has its laws. For throughout 
the universe of matter and of mind man has never 
found a spot where law is absent, — until he has 
come to see that freedom is only the unobstructed 
action of law, is found only in obedience to a law 
felt to be divine and omnipresent and one through 
all orders of being, the divine law being but the law 
of their constitution, not outside of them but within 
them. 



HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 387 

Among the laws of this involuntary, unconscious, 
recipient life there seem to be two, without obedi- 
ence to which we can never have that side of our 
life healthy and true. 

One is, that this unconscious, involuntary life 
should remain unconscious, involuntary. If we try 
to put much of our thought, our intention, our will 
into it, if we carry curiosity or definite seeking into 
it, asking consciously to know it, we already vitiate 
it. Just as we disturb the unconscious, vital pro- 
cesses of our bodies by watching too closely or try- 
ing to regulate their operation. It will come to us 
most healthily and beneficently when we are not 
too definitely seeking it ; when our thought and our 
will are engaged in their proper work of doing what 
lies within the province of our will, our self-deter- 
mined work. 

The monks and the mystics who have deserted 
their work and their duty in the world where God 
set them, in the idea that they could find God by 
seeking Him only in the way of contemplation and 
prayer, have not gained what they sought ; have 
found only a diseased or torpid, not a healthy reli- 
gious life. No wonder they have been infested with 
devils ! Do your daily work with cheerful heart, 
love your neighbor, deal justly, love mercy, forget 
yourself, yea, your very soul, if you would that God 
should come to you and abide in you. The divine 
reinforcement and inspiration are the reward of 
duty, not the substitutes for it. And the will that 
is turned to doing his will, to loving what He loves, 
cannot fail to have his abiding, quickening presence. 
His inspiration is not a definite communication of 



388 HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 

thought, or knowledge, or direction, but rather a 
quickening and exalting and inspiration of our minds 
and consciences. We must do the day's plain duty 
and put forth our mind and hand to the morning or 
noonday task. Then we may expect the helpful, 
vitalizing, spiritual powers to flow into ours. For 
so we have fulfilled the condition upon which they 
can healthily, because unconsciously to us, enter into 
us. For we must never think to be able definitely 
to distinguish between the divine and the human 
thought, the divine and the human will, or know at 
what precise point God comes in, in this sacred 
mingling of the human and divine. 

And so, I believe, we ought to allow the influences 
from spirits in the invisible sphere to remain indefi- 
nite, undetermined, general ; and not seek detailed 
communication or direction or answer to the ques- 
tions of curiosity. Else we lay ourselves open to 
endless delusions and perhaps much spiritual harm. 
Enough to know, to feel, that if we are seeking true 
and pure ends, we must by a spiritual law receive 
the sympathy and helping influences of all true and 
pure spirits. 

Another condition of this unconscious, recipient 
life is the law of temperance. If we give ourselves up 
to it without self-control, resigning our self-mastery 
in its behalf, we shall lose our spiritual life instead 
of gaining it. It is characteristic of the impulsive, 
emotional, spontaneous, instinctive part of our nature 
that it has in itself nothing to keep it from going 
to excess. Its nature is only to express or indulge 
itself, and it would stop only with exhaustion, being 
without an element of self-restraint or self-limitation. 



HE GIVE Til HIS BEIOVED IN SLEEP 389 

It needs, therefore, always to be balanced and 
held in bounds by the conscious will, intelligence, or 
moral sense. If without such guardianship we give 
ourselves up to the mere emotions of feeling, to the 
recipiency of impressions, to the impulses of instinct, 
to the currents of influence, — give ourselves up, I 
say, — we shall be in great danger of becoming vic- 
tims of caprice, fancies, and feelings. We shall have 
notions instead of thoughts, whims instead of con- 
science, willfulness instead of will. And the life 
that might be beautiful with the free play of spon- 
taneity within law will become self-indulgent and 
passionate, or weak and wasted. No man has a 
right to give up this control entirely, not even to 
the highest and divinest influence, not even, I will 
say, to the Supreme Spirit ; and certainly, with 
much more reason, to none less than He. It is not 
safe for a man to allow himself to be possessed by 
another. We sometimes meet in life an instance 
where a strong will and forceful character has 
gained complete power over another. How the life 
dwindles and dies out of the weaker ! All individu- 
ality and character disappear ; it is the murder of a 
soul. Amadeus may abdicate the throne of Spain, 
but no man has a right to abdicate the throne of his 
own soul. To do this is the " great refusal," like 
that of the Pope embalmed in Dante's vigorous 
scorn. He may often lay aside the robes of state 
and the rod of empire. He may bathe himself in all 
sweet and beautiful influences, accept gladly the 
tonic quickening of high and strong companionships, 
seek a consecrating communion with the Holy 
Spirit, and even let himself fall peacefully to repose 



390 HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 

in the arms of Him who giveth to his beloved while 
they sleep. But his sceptre must always be within 
his reach, nor must he let his crown be stolen. 

I have said that a man has not even the right to 
surrender his control of himself, permanently, even 
to the Supreme Spirit. Is that too bold ? I think 
not. If anywhere, it would be here. This posses- 
sion one would pronounce safe — to be possessed by 
God. But God has not asked that, has not willed it. 
I say this not because I have " entered into his coun- 
sels." But I see that He has given us self-conscious 
thought, self-determining consciences, self-directing 
wills. We are not made, like some lower creatures, 
to obey without conscious purpose or knowledge 
the life -forces that work through them. He has set 
us a little off from himself, so to speak ; and laid a 
responsibility on us that we cannot fail to feel and 
which shows us his will for us. To us his sons He 
has given the glorious liberty, the perilous but no- 
ble privilege, of sharing his creative intelligence and 
becoming voluntary co-workers with Him. We are 
not mere " receptacles," as Swedenborg calls us, we 
are recipients of his life. He does not pour him- 
self into empty vessels, but sends the thrills of his 
power, his justice, his beauty, and love along the 
lines of healthful nerves and vigorous fibres, reach- 
ing out to do his work. Not broken wills, not cruci- 
fied wills, but consecrated wills does He seek, to pour 
his will through. 

Selfishness, and self-reference, and self-seeking 
must indeed be crucified, but not self ; wilfullness 
must be extinguished, but not will. I distrust the 
humility which is an abasement. I find that a dis- 



HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 39 1 

eased piety which says in our hymn-books, " Man 
is nought, is less than nought." I cannot sympa- 
thize with the Romanist devoteeism which puts 
self-extinction, annihilation of will, as steps to the 
life of God in the soul. It is too much akin to 
the Jesuit discipline, which bids every member of 
the order put himself " as a dead body " into the 
hands of his superior. Not dead but living souls 
will God inspire ! Rather would I hear the Stoic 
trumpet of Epictetus : " Dare look up to God and 
say, Make use of me as thou wilt ; I am of the same 
mind, I am one with Thee." 

Thus, between two forces, do we in our path of 
life "go sounding on our dim and perilous way." 
Perilous, yes ; but not unguarded, not insecure ; it 
need not be uncertain. The sun at the centre draws 
us with its unrelaxing claim of Duty ; the influences 
without us never lose their balancing attractions. 
The resultant should be the full circle. Duty and 
inclination, spontaneity and obedience, impulse and 
conscience, — in the equilibrium of these is our true 
orbit of life. 

We must wear the yoke of discipline as prelimi- 
nary training for the unconscious life of holiness. 
While we accept the responsibility which our power 
of self-direction imposes on us, we are saved from 
the burden of a responsibility which we could not 
bear by the remembrance that our characters are but 
in part of our own building, — but partly in our own 
keeping. We hold the helm and set the sail, but 
the wind of heaven and the currents of ocean bear 
us on. 

The same thought will also keep us from over- 



392 HE GIVE Til HIS BELOVED IN SLEEP 

anxiety about our duty to others for whose character 
and well-doing we feel responsibility. 

Our duty of direct guidance and watchfulness is 
but a partial duty. Our indirect, unconscious influ- 
ence and many influences beyond our control are 
working too, and take from us half the responsibility 
which else might here, also, be more than we could 
bear. 

And, finally, a lesson of charity is suggested in 
our judgment of our fellow-men, in our blame of 
their misdoings. While we ought not to abate our 
just condemnation of the misdeed, or withold its just 
punishment, for the misdoer we may remember that 
not all the burden lies at the door of his conscious 
will. Only the Omniscient can tell how far he is 
morally guilty for willful disobedience, for intended 
wrong, and how far circumstances of birth, educa- 
tion, temptation, beyond his will and intention, have 
made him what he is. In the hands of that Perfect 
Justice we may well leave him, as we are glad at 
every moment to leave ourselves, happy in the 
thought that we cannot put forth one effort of mind, 
heart, or conscience toward truth, right or good, but 
his inflowing Spirit works through us, inspiring and 
conspiring ; that we cannot descend into any hell 
of passion or disobedience but that He is there, in 
his retributions, to warn us back to life. For in help 
or in retribution, while we work out our own salva- 
tion by our own way, it is always God who is work- 
ing in us. 



STAYED ON GOD 

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
Thee. . . . For in the Eternal is everlasting strength. — Isaiah xxvi. 
3>4- 

To very many persons the enterprises and the ac- 
tivities of life are so attractive and interesting that 
they ask nothing more for their happiness than the 
exercise of their energies in some work to which 
they feel fully equal ; which gives them good hope 
of success ; and offers no difficulties or obstacles, 
except such as their energy is able to overcome, and 
against which they feel an exhilaration in mating 
their powers. They do not pray ior peace, but only 
for more power and more opportunity, and ' a task 
that shall call out their powers and give them full 
play. 

But, sooner or later, comes to all a different ex- 
perience, in one or other shape ; some demand to 
which they are not equal ; some hindrance which 
they cannot overcome ; some duty to which they 
can bring only failing or exhausted strength ; some 
disaster against which they struggle in vain ; some 
disappointment which seems to break the very spring 
of life ; some affliction which overwhelms and ap- 
palls ; some tempest which hurls them from their 
foundations and makes the earth tremble and rock 
under their feet ; some uncertainty or anxiety which 



394 STAYED ON GOD 

overthrows all their plans and tosses them to and 
fro, and makes their prayer to be for peace, only 
peace, and their eager question, " Where shall we 
find our rest ? " — rest from driving ambition and 
tyrannous passions, from haunting desires after the 
unattainable, from perplexing doubts and strivings 
after truth that still evades us, from hopes doomed 
to repeated disappointment, from desponding fail- 
ures, from plans defeated, from broken reliances, 
from unanswered affections, from wearying yet never 
ceasing cares, from duties urgent yet feebly met, 
from conscience quick to condemn yet powerless to 
aid, from conflict with passions within or tempta- 
tions without, from restless despondency and fears, 
from sorrow and the burden of grief, its loneliness, 
its longings, and its pain — could we but learn the 
secret, would not all be well ? would not all be at- 
tained ? 

There are two ways conceivable in which we 
might find relief from this perplexity, this unrest 
which at times becomes fearful and overwhelming. 
One is by having all trials, temptations, losses, suf- 
ferings, burdens, difficulties, obstacles, hard duties, 
sorrows, removed, taken quite away from us. The 
other is by having strength imparted and cheerful 
courage to do, to meet, to bear them ; by having a 
power given to us, or revealed within us, equal to or 
greater than the demand. The former is too often 
the way we should choose for ourselves or those dear 
to us ; the latter seems apt to be God's way for us. 
Which is the highest and best way, a serious thought 
may show us. For the first would give us the rest 
of self-indulgence, indifference, and indolence ; the 



STAYED ON GOD 395 

latter the rest and satisfaction of strength and 
courage. 

There is peace, then, not only in becoming in- 
different to all objects of desire, but in desiring 
only such as we can obtain ; not merely in having 
duties appointed us, but in having power and fidel- 
ity to meet and accomplish those that demand us ; 
not only in having obstacles removed but in hav- 
ing cheerful energy to surmount them ; not only 
in having our passions suppressed, but in having 
the strength of will to control and guide and use 
them ; not in having temptations withdrawn, but 
in having a strength of principle that readily puts 
them by or makes them occasions of virtue ; not in 
being spared trials and sorrows, but in having a faith 
that meets them with serenity and learns from them 
beautiful and divine lessons ; gets from them bless- 
ings of patience, trust, purity, and heavenliness, and 
cheerfulness, and depth of soul, and spirituality of the 
affections, which God's hand hides in them ; not in 
having every wish, even the most extravagant, ful- 
filled, but in having a well-balanced and calm spirit 
that so adapts itself at once to whatever happens that 
it cannot be said to know disappointment long. 

This is plainly the highest peace, because it be- 
longs to a strong, serene, trustful, steadfast soul ; be- 
cause it is from within and not from without. This 
is God's peace, and it is to be found in Him. It is 
true that " He keepeth in perfect peace the heart 
that is stayed on Him." Nothing less great, nothing 
less central, can give the peace which shall be equal 
to all needs, unshaken by all trials, abiding through 
all changes. Only that which is highest and that 



396 STAYED ON GOD 

which is deepest, — above the tempest ; beneath the 
waves. Only the immutable, only the eternal, only 
the real. And what does not disturb Him will not 
disturb the heart that is stayed on Him. What does 
not thwart his sacred purpose will not disappoint 
the will that is stayed on Him. What He can bear, 
the heart that is stayed on Him can bear. 

They tell us that when men were sounding to find 
the ocean-floor along which the Atlantic cable should 
be laid, they found that floor to be covered deep with 
a deposit of microscopic shells of the most exquisite 
delicacy. These minute shells, which the slightest 
touch of a finger would crush, were found to be un- 
broken and perfect in their outline. The terrific 
storms, which ploughed up and lashed up the ocean 
surface, and crushed the strong ships, were out on 
the surface. In the depths was unbroken calm. 

This globe of ours, whose surface is daily revolv- 
ing with such inconceivable swiftness, so that we 
are now miles away in space from where we were 
when I began this sentence, has through its centre 
a line of atoms which do not move — the steadfast 
axis of the earth's revolution. Such a depth of un- 
disturbed calm must we seek beneath the restless, 
harassed, ever changing surface of our life ; such a 
steadfast central line of thought and purpose run- 
ning through our changing lives. 

It is the God who is in all things as all things are 
in Him ; that invisible which is in all things visible ; 
that permanent which runs through all things that 
change ; that spiritual which lies within all things 
material ; that truth which underlies and survives 
all changing opinions ; that soul of good which is 



STAYED ON GOD 397 

within all things evil ; that supreme, all-conquering, 
beneficent Will which contains and controls all ; 
that perfect law of righteousness which holds in 
check and overcomes all wrong ; that perfect Love 
which embosoms all in its purposes of final and 
spiritual good. These, these are God, name them 
as we may. And our faith in God is our faith, 
our assurance of his reality, this supreme, omnipo- 
tent reality and permanence of an unseen Good, 
Right, and True, within. And because God is this 
omnipresent element of reality, of permanence of 
order, therefore is He the ground of peace, and 
therefore does He keep in perfect peace the heart 
that is stayed on Him. 

We cannot rest in what is uncertain, unreal, dis- 
orderly ; it is just these things that make us restless 
and destroy our peace. What is it that is restful 
to us in life? What but the certainties of nature 
about us ; the affections that can be relied upon ; the 
men and women that can be trusted ; the things that 
we can be tolerably sure will not change and fail 
us ? Whence are our anxieties, our troubles, our dis- 
tresses, all that mars our peace, but from the uncer- 
tainties, the failures, of that we thought could be 
relied upon, bringing disappointment, instability, in- 
security ; the smooth sea beginning to toss under 
us ; the steadfast earth to quake. It is not change 
that disturbs. For the change, the movement, that 
is orderly and calculable is life and exhilaration and 
delight ; and absolute rest, if inaction, is no more 
peace than it is life. But peace is equilibrium and 
balance and harmony ; balance of feeling, balance 
of power, balance of circumstances, adjustment to 



398 STAYED ON GOD 

our condition and its demands. And this we are to 
t get by getting at the element of permanence in the 
changing, so that we do not lose hold of the thread 
of continuity ; so that though we are moving, our 
tread is on the firm earth ; so that though all things 
be shifting about us, we have still firm grasp of that 
which does not change. 

What is this but saying that we must look beyond 
the fleeting, within the sure ? It is the large look, 
the high look, the deep look alone that can reveal 
to us the immutable secrets of Peace. 

Some things are, and some things only appear to 
be. The things that are, are the real and lasting, 
the true, the eternal ; these have being. The things 
that only appear to exist are the changing, the tran- 
sient, the shows, the fashions. These have only out- 
ward existence, whose very nature is change. We 
live truly just in proportion as we have knowledge 
of, and experience of, and faith in, things which are, 
in the realities, the element that does not change. 
These are truths, ideas, principles, laws ; the same 
to-day, yesterday, and forever ; they are truth, jus- 
tice, virtue, goodness, holiness, faith, — the unseen. 
The physiologist tells us of the perpetually chan- 
ging atoms of our bodies, every moment passing off, 
every moment renewed, so that not one particle 
remains that formed our body a few years ago. 
And yet that body is essentially the same and rec- 
ognizable by those who saw it then, so that there 
is a certain unity and continuity which holds on 
while atoms disappear. But even more in our minds 
and characters, in our inner self, do we find a con- 
tinuity. Since we were children, what changes of 



STAYED ON GOD 399 

thought, experience, feeling, opinion, motive, desire, 
purpose ; yet, looking back, we find ourselves essen- 
tially the same in all characteristic qualities now as 
then ; our individual personality unchanged ; and so 
we find it will be, must be, in the years that await 
us, unchanged. 

And in the great universe about us, which science 
explores amid the perpetual and unresting move- 
ments of molecules and of orbs, there is more and 
more clearly recognized among all things a unity and 
permanence of forces ; a persistency and omnipres- 
ence and perpetuity of law, which is the orderly 
method that runs through all processes and changes ; 
and which justifies us in speaking of will and pur- 
pose in the universe. 

So in the world of Man. We travel from land to 
land, through savage nations and cultivated com- 
munities ; we note the variations, the grades of 
advance, the peculiarities national, local, and climatic, 
of races ; but we find under them all certain essen- 
tial human elements the same substantially in all. 
All in some way or other eat, sleep, think, love, 
hate, build, make implements for their work, adorn 
themselves, have rulers and laws, have notions of 
right and wrong, and unseen power, and dreams of a 
future life. 

So if we study the history of the human race, we 
find the same essential unity amid differences, the 
perpetual recurring elements of language, society, 
government, worship, law, conscience, heart, and 
will. Under a thin surface of difference is a solid 
basis of likeness ; under variety of appearance, reality 
of permanence. 



400 STAYED ON GOD 

In this way is justified to our reason that instinc- 
tive sense (which belongs, as I think, to our spiritual 
nature), the sense of an Immutable Reality of being 
within, under, and through all changes of existence. 
This our religious thought calls God. In this our 
hearts rest, to this our conscience appeals, to this 
our minds work, by this our wills hold steadfast. 
He is the one permanent cosmic Force and Cause 
in the world of matter, the unchanging Inspiration 
in the world of soul. He is in the law of gravitation, 
He is the law of conscience. In outward nature, 
He is the Presence and Purpose of good which con- 
verts all corruption into beauty, all decay into life. 
In the world of human souls, He is the Presence 
and Purpose of good which converts all seeming and 
temporary sufferings into blessings ; the Will and 
Law of righteousness which converts and sets right 
every wrong. 

Our need, then, is to get beneath appearances ; to 
find out what things really are ; not what they are 
for the moment or the day, but what they are for 
the eternities ; not what they are in reference to our 
outward comfort, but what they are to our inner and 
enduring life. 

Disappointments, losses, bereavement, failure, se- 
cret sorrow — how full life is of them ! But is that 
all the tale ? Moral disciplines, are they ? Say bet- 
ter, they are consecrations, openings into inward life, 
openings into higher thoughts and holy feelings of 
trust and faith. Then it is in this reading of them 
in the light of spiritual results, and God's purpose, 
that we are to find peace and refuge from the dis- 
tresses which they occasion. If we felt no pain in 



STAYED ON GOD 4OI 

them, no anguish, it could only be because we 
were hard, heartless, unfeeling ; or because we had 
learned the lesson of peace too deeply and fully to 
be moved by any outward thing. Whatsoever, then, 
it be that disorders, annoys, grieves you ; makes life 
look dark and your heart dumbly ache, or wets your 
eyes with bitter tears, look at it steadily, look at it 
deeply, look at it in the thought of God and his pur- 
pose of good, and already the pain and annoy of it 
will begin to brighten. The heart may not grow 
calm at once, as the storm-lifted waves do not at 
once sink into tranquillity, but toss through days 
and nights after the wind has ceased ; but a centre 
of peace has been found which will keep us from 
sinking, for we are stayed on God. 

In two ways does the he^rt stay itself on Him, 
and find itself kept in peace. 

One way is by trust in Him ; one is by obedience. 
Sometimes all we can do is simply to trust ; when 
there is absolutely nothing for us to do in the trial, 
but to be still under it ; when we cannot see the 
reason for it, or the need of it, or the way out of 
it. We can be still, with God's help. The thought 
of Him in such an hour is a thought of calmness, of 
something that stays by us whatever else is gone, 
wrecked, lost. There He stands, and there we can 
stand. We can hold up by that Hand while the 
waves and billows go over us, and the wrecks of 
fortune, of hope, of affection are scattered about us. 
And how beautiful a thing it is to trust, till the 
storm subsides and the light comes again ! And 
how reasonable a thing ! Not a hope of ours falls 
to the ground without the Father, who holds dis- 



402 STAYED ON GOD 

appointment in his hand as easily as fulfillment. 
What, does his power hold every particle of matter 
to perfect laws in all its shapes and movements; 
and can any human event be denied his presence ? 
Even what the sin of man does, or his ignorance, or 
his passion, or his mistake, — is that outside of his 
presence ? In every evil God is present, not as evil 
but as redemption, as the Power which restrains evil 
within sure limits, which makes it work its own 
destruction, which makes it servant of good, and at 
last transmutes it into good, by his spiritual chemis- 
try turning the vilest thing in nature into beauty 
and sweetness. In pain, He is present as a power 
to bear up under pain. In affliction, as a ready 
peace. Nothing in the world is so bad as it seems 
to an outside view, severed from its relations. There 
is no absolutely unmixed evil in a world of which 
God is the life. For no human will can shut Him 
utterly out, and where there is a ray of good, there 
God is. It is this assurance that He mingles him- 
self in all things which is the reasonable ground of 
our trust in the darkest and most mysterious, the 
most unrelieved and apparently hopeless trouble. 
But our trust is beyond and before our reasoning. 
It is the sweet childlike surrender of our hearts. It 
is the full acceptance of our lot. " I will trust Thee, 
though Thou slay me." 

The second ground of peace is righteousness, or 
obedience to the divine will as moral law. A man 
can no more be at real peace who is not living 
in accordance with this divine law, than a building 
can be stable which is not in accordance with the 
laws of cohesion and gravitation. In the old days, 



STAYED ON GOD 403 

whose lesson I hope we have not forgotten, when 
the attempt was made again to stave off moral ques- 
tions in politics, to keep back and cover up the sim- 
ple obligations of justice and humanity, when peace 
was bought by continual compromises, temporizing- 
expedients, — called each in turn a finality, — it used 
to be said, and truly, that nothing is settled which 
is not settled right, which is not fixed on the basis 
of justice. It is with individual men as with classes 
and communities. There is no peace to the man 
whose thoughts, purposes, conduct are not adjusted 
to the eternal law of God's righteousness. Till that 
is done, there remains an element of discord, an- 
archy, war within him, that will not let him have 
peace. The reproofs of his better nature, the sug- 
gestions of conscience, will not let him rest in any 
moral compromise with himself, by which he may 
try to atone by some virtues for other allowed vices. 
Or, if conscience be deadened, the fear of discovery, 
the dread of betrayal by accomplices in wrong, keep 
him disturbed. Or, if none of these, there is still a 
will at discord with God's will and the moral order 
of the universe. Not till he is adjusted and centred 
on these is a man at peace in the conscious and fear- 
less strength of virtue. Against wrong doing the uni- 
verse of God is arrayed ; on the side of right doing 
it is forever pledged. "Whoso is at heart just, so 
far is he God," said one who spoke not too boldly. 
The greatness of God, the eternity of God, do enter 
into that man with justice ; whatever comes to him, 
whatever goes from him, is stayed on God. " All is 
lost, save honor," says the brave general on the 
battlefield, calm amid his ruined plans because he 



404 STAYED ON GOD 

has faithfully done his best. All is lost save integ- 
rity, save principle, save human respect and affection, 
save God's approval, many a man has said, amid the 
wreck of fortune by no fault of his own. What he 
has, in having honesty, is more than what he has 
lost. Stayed on God, he is kept in perfect peace. 



